Wolf

Wolf is Tyler The Creator's third project. It was the album I discovered him through, around 2014 on Reddit. This was my first favorite album, I remember playing video games by myself while I listened to it. It has amazing production throughout, there's awesome piano parts, guitar riffs, and synth lines. I also really love the drum rhythms and tone. Awkward is one of my favorite songs of all time, I did a cover of it 2 years ago. Today I'm gonna write about four songs off of the album.

Cowboy

This song starts out with an homage to the iconic Pharrell Williams 4 beat count. The drum pattern on this song is so unique, I love how disjointed the rhythm is. The snare falls on the 2nd beat of the first bar of the loop, and then the 1st and 3rd of the second bar. It counts like this,

one TWO three four ONE two THREE four

kick SNARE kick kick SNARE kick SNARE kick

While the drums play, there is a creepy guitar with a thin tone to compliment the thick drums. Under all of this, is a bass with a sub tone that fills the space without being overblown. At 0:27, the guitar is replaced with a beautiful piano melody. It sounds like it's two tracks put together, one playing chords and the other playing the high notes that creates rhythm in the melody. I love the chord at 0:36, and the one that follows and leads back into the loop. I notice the bass is played higher here, I really like the rhythm at 0:41. At 0:51, the song falls back into the initial loop. The contrast between the piano piece and the guitar is perfect. Later on in the song at 2:03, there is a synth that harmonizes the piano piece perfectly in tone and melody. The last thing I wanna point out is the way the vocal delay transitions from the chorus to the verse at 1:37 and 2:25, the way it pans from left to right is cool.

Answer

This song is similar to Cowboy in terms of instruments and tone. It's built around an addicting guitar riff plucking chords most common on piano.

It starts out with an awesome acoustic drum loop. I love the faded, lofi tone and how it affects the snare and open hi hat. The snare roll is so satisfying, and I love the rhythm of the kick at 0:08. The bass is loud and fills the space evenly. At 0:13 a keyboard layers the loop with pretty chords, and at 0:26 a synth harmonizes. It follows a simple two note rhythm until 0:41, where it plays a cool line. It follows this throughout the rest of the song.

Tyler The Creator uses this song to express the anger and longing he feels for his father. You can feel the hate in each verse which is contrasted by the softness of the hook. This is further pushed by the layering of the vocals during the second hook, which are a great harmonizing melody. Tyler pulls back from the seriousness of the song with the last verse, and his explanation of it after. It's a great way to end the song rather than having it end serious only to transition into something less sad.

Slater

Answer leads into Slater, which has a lot of interesting keyboard and piano lines. The drums on this song are similar to the loop Cowboy had. The snare falls on

one two THREE four one TWO three FOUR

It loops two times and the first time there is an open hi hat on the first and third beat of the 2nd bar. I love the rhythms played on the hi hat. The kick drum is also really interesting to follow. The melody of this song is comprised of a lot of different instruments put together. The main part, to me, is what sounds like a guitar playing quarter notes on one note and then down in pitch. This is layered with a keyboard that is playing chords, a low synth being held in the background, and a high string playing stabs in the right ear. At 0:25, the low synth goes up in pitch and then falls down in the following notes. One part I'll always love is the vocal sample at 0:47, right after this the bass comes in. I also hear a low piano that starts to add to the loop, it layers the chords being played previously. All of this builds into the break at 2:39, with another keyboard being added that plays gorgeous chords over the established parts. Frank Ocean's vocal inflections are perfect in harmonizing everything.

Lone

Lone is the last song on Wolf. Its production is unique in that it is entirely a sample, where as the other songs I wrote about Tyler composed himself. In terms of processing, it sounds like the sample was made louder through means of distortion. The song features no hook, and there aren't any effects on the vocal take. This song is a the perfect way to end the album. One part that sticks out to me is the way the loop restarts at 1:45. It's hard to tell exactly what was done here, but there was definitely pitch modulation going up. It sounds like a snippet of the sample was cut and paste to make the wobble effect, then there's a stereo effect which makes it feel like it's moving, and finally reverb. What's cool about this song, is that the rest of the album is about fictional characters and thematically this pulls you back into reality.

Those are some of my favorite songs off of Wolf. It is such an amazing album with the composition and production throughout. One thing that does feel weird to ignore are the many slurs throughout, but I can't explain someone else's art. In terms of Tyler The Creator specifically, I think it's important to acknowledge the context of why he was using them. Beyond just the typical "he wanted to piss people off", Tyler was composing these complex, beautiful melodies over unique and intricate drums. It's poetic how vile the lyrics were. Most people would use that type of talent to make safe music that can appeal to massive audiences.

Thank you for reading!