Finding your wings is the theme that was taken from Tyler’s fourth album ‘Cherry Bomb’ and the one thing that can be said about that is that it is definitely apparent even throughout his career. If you’ve been living under a rock for the past 4-5 years you’ve been missing out on the growth of what has become Tyler in Cherry Bomb.
Tyler definitely did come off as disturbed with his earlier work, but he had always shown signs of musical talent. From songs like Session on Bastard (2009) to She featuring well known singer Frank Ocean on Goblin (2011) to so many songs on Wolf (2013) to even list. He has been easing fans into what ‘Cherry Bomb’ was. The one thing that makes ‘Cherry Bomb’ stand out is the lack of narrative that his prior three albums had that dealt with these characters (Wolf, Ace, Wolf Haley, Sam, Salem, Dr. TC, etc) that played out in your head like a trilogy of movies.
We’ve watched Tyler grow for four years and blossom into something that is so much different from the beginning of his career. His rhymes seem lackluster and to many people it was a turn-off. His witty, dark twisted rhymes that painted pictures as well as shown a little immaturity is not the focus of this album as it was before. If you want to hear him rap, I suggest that you skip to track 11 featuring Kanye West and Lil Wayne. As great of a song as it was, it’s not my favorite because it was not the focus of the album. The production had some very interesting (in a good way) values with it. It’s as if he is turning into a new form of what N.E.R.D was for music over ten years ago. Tracks like Find Your Wings, Blow My Load, 2Seater, and Fucking Young/Perfect showed this and the album was a great effort by Tyler. It was rough around the edges, but when it’s all said and done it was a good album and a good introduction into what direction Tyler will go forward with.
samforthepeople 