A Review of Tyler The Creator's IGOR

Photograph by Michael Tringale original album art work by Lewis Rossignol and Luis “Pancho” Perez

"Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean Coachella 2012" by david_hwang is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

IGOR, an album written and produced by Tyler Okonma, better known as Tyler, the Creator, is Tyler's fifth studio album since his debut album Goblin. Goblin, released in 2011, was not a mainstream or popular album but included his hit single "Yonkers". Stylistically, IGOR is a complete left-field ball from the rest of Tyler, the Creator’s discography. According to IMDB, Tyler began songwriting in 2008 when he “founded the hip-hop collective Odd Future, a controversial, alternate group”. Following the split from Odd Future, Tyler started writing full-length studio albums, earning a label as a rapper from his previous work in Odd Future and his preceding albums leading up to his highly anticipated IGOR. Released in the spring of 2019, IGOR is an alternative R&B and Neo-soul album with fusions of Pop, Hip-Hop, and Funk. The album features eleven full-length songs and one interlude. The album is known for its experimental and captivating synthesizers, funk guitar, hip-hop beats/soul-inspired rhythm, and retro and airy vocal inflections performed by Tyler. 

Tyler takes experimental to a new meaning on this record in numerous ways he did not on his prior projects. One of the ways Tyler creatively assembled IGOR was with contrasting song structures. The opening track, “IGORS THEME" is instrumentally focused, with a structured song form of Bridge Chorus(chorus, bridge, chorus), and is accompanied by an instrumental intro, outro, and a short interlude with lyrics sung by Lil Uzi Vert, and Tyler. The interesting form allows for an energetic and exciting introduction to the album and the rest of the songs Tyler intended to showcase, as it keeps listeners entertained and wondering where the song will arrive melodically. Tyler continues to contribute this same energy to all of the songs on IGOR, including the next song on the track list titled “EARFQUAKE” which is Tyler’s hit single from the album. “EARFQUAKE” has a more consistent song structure of chorus, refrain, chorus, verse, refrain, verse(accompanied by an intro and outro). Tyler incorporates these drastic changes in song structure throughout the quick runtime of IGOR to create a unique and entertaining blend of songs. I appreciate how Tyler assembled songs in their order to be deliberately distinct and unique from one another. One thing that is pretty consistent throughout the album is Tyler's use of repeated choruses; they aren't “hooks” or “repeated lines”. Aside from the drastic difference in song forms, two songs stood out as the simplest and most similar in structure, and that was “PUPPET” which has a song form of AABA, and “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” which follows the song structure of BABBAB.

While Tyler managed to incorporate intriguing song structures, he also delivered one of the best harmonic performances and bars on any album in 2019. The harmonic content of these songs delivers a pleasurable earworm of a listen with beautifully layered vocals and memorable lines attached to them. According to Song Key, many of the songs on this album are in the key of C#, and “6 songs are minor(out of 12)”. This split in the contrast between tonality allows Tyler to have a lot of harmonic and lyrical contrast between songs by not being limited to one key throughout the album. There are times when these harmonies are dense, thin, and sporadic. These dense harmonies can be seen predominantly on the track “EARFQUAKE” during the refrain and the chorus, where Tyler vocalizes in multiple registres layered on top of each other. Sporadic harmonies are utilized in a plethora of choruses all across the album, my favorite use of these harmonies is in the chorus of “A BOY IS A GUN”. As for the bars and rhyme scheme used on this album, Tyler uses a lot of different rhyme schemes on different songs. However, Tyler's best use and most frequent rhyme schemes on IGOR are imperfect/slant and perfect rhymes. One of the tracks where Tyler uses both imperfect/slant and perfect rhyme schemes is in the song “WHAT'S GOOD” which is on the latter half of the album. According to Genius, the track features bars like “When you see them brand new le Fleurs on the floor? If the cops ask my name, bitch, I'm IGOR” and the perfect rhyme “No answer why, no tears to cry”. These two rhyme schemes are consistent throughout the project and have multiple appearances on every track on this album. Tyler’s writing is another one of the many ways he gets experimental with IGOR.

The subject matter of IGOR is about a love triangle that Tyler finds himself in. Tyler is in love with this guy, who is also interested in this other girl. The realization sends Tyler into a wave of emotions, which is why IGOR embodies a fluctuating sound of contrasting styles, tonalities, and moods established throughout this album. Towards the beginning, we hear a more loveable side of Tyler expressing his love for this person and how they make him feel on tracks like “EARFQUAKE” and “I THINK”. But this does not last long as the track “RUNNING OUT OF TIME” expresses Tyler's lack of time to obtain this person of interests love, and attention. Feeling defeated, Tyler finds himself in a place of jealousy and desire to remove his crush's lover from the picture so Tyler can have him for himself. This attitude is displayed on the track “NEW MAGIC WAND” and is a different sound than anything else included on the album as it is established as Tyler’s lowest and darkest turning point and perfectly divides the album into two halves(six songs on each). After this turning point, Tyler starts to understand the manipulation and downsides of being with his lover on tracks like “A BOY IS A GUN” and “PUPPET”. Tyler starts to become aware of the toxic situation and confusion that has consumed him for so long, which leads the album to the track “WHAT'S GOOD”. Following this are two tracks that seem like the end for Tyler as he finally recognizes his feelings and is done subjecting himself to the heartache and pain of trying to love a complicated lover, which takes us to the tracks “GONE, GONE/THANK YOU” and “I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE”. But unfortunately, in the end, Tyler does a 180, allowing this toxic person back into his life with the track “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS”. Throughout the song, the lyrics are “Are we still friends” playing on the depths of desperation Tyler feels to keep this person in his life. In terms of the actual title of the album IGOR, I found this quote written by Forbes Writer Chris Lambert in which he explains the significance of the title “Remember that the generic concept of IGOR is an assistant to a scientist. Second fiddle to a more dominant personality. To fulfill the role of a loyal friend and a comical sidekick, who better than IGOR?”. Lambert explains in this quote the significance of IGOR is that Tyler is trying to convey what it feels like to be the loyal friend sidekick in a love triangle while only being seen by someone you admire as less than. 

Overall, IGOR is a remarkable record, and the best in Tyler, the Creator’s discography. There are so many attitudes on this album, from grief to heartache, pain, and love, and all the songs on this project encapsulate at least one or multiple of those feelings on every track. The songs are not too lengthy and tend to sit around three to three and a half minutes, except for a few. The songs are too short(in my opinion) because they are melodically interesting, lyrically thought-provoking, and structurally intriguing. I wish they were longer. The production of this album is colorful and stylistically fits all of the songs. As a listener, I lose a lot of Tyler's raw vocals to pitched up or down variations of it, which is a personal issue I have with it, but in the context of the album, it makes sense for the narrative and genre he is writing in. There are a lot of contrasting rhythms, buildups, and resolutions. All of the songs were very well communicated and made sense in the overall context of the story Tyler is trying to tell on the album. Everything fits so well and sounds so good in succession and makes the album experimental and stylistically different from anything else Tyler, the Creator has ever released.