Album review: Tyler the Creator, 'Goblin'
Rating: 2.5 stars (out of 4)
Transgression is crucial to pop culture. It defines the outer edge, the forbidden zone, from Elvis Presley’s censored pelvis and Eminem’s revenge fantasies to the Rolling Stones’ black-and-blue misogyny and Marilyn Manson’s fascist send-ups. And now, in a world where “American Idol” sanitizes future chart-toppers, there is the boyish hip-hop crew Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All lying in ambush.
“They are them, we are us, kill them all,” goes one of the group’s risibly nihilistic chants. Their moment is now.
Odd Future has self-released a dozen mix tapes and albums in the last few years, developing a huge word-of-mouth following that climaxed with a series of high-profile appearances at the South by Southwest Music Conference last March in Austin, Texas. At the upscale industry event, the Los Angeles collective brought boundless energy, bleak humor, boyish petulance, scalding anger and horrific fantasies that described everything from murder to rape. It’s stomach-churning stuff, but to a generation raised on explicit video games and splatter movies, Odd Future amplifies a violent discontent that most pop music wouldn’t dare address. And, like all transgressive artists, Odd Future thrills its fans by stepping over the line, over and over again. It becomes an in joke shared by the group and its fans as they annihilate taboos like so many assailants in a “Grand Theft Auto” shootout.
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