The millenial, web-native, post-P.C. L.A. rap collective Odd Future generated red-alert levels of chatter in advance of yesterday’s release of their first official album, “The OF Tape, Vol. 2.” The question of whether the viral-inspired music videos, “free Earl” mystery-making, teasing song snippets, and other fast-evaporating, blog-post-generating artifacts all led up to this or instead built to a sort of anticlimax, a mockery of the album’s antiquated form, we’ll leave to the academics and, when the numbers come in, keepers of the sales charts. What we have, indisputably, is a grouping of songs. And so we took notes on them in real time, scoring each out of 10.
1. “Hi.”
In a monologue delivered over cool jazz, L-Boy insults the various members of Odd Future.
2. “Bitches”
Features: Domo Genesis, Hodgy Beats
Sound: Slow, minimal, and super-deep, with a jarring, glassy synth figure butting in.
Theme: Odd Future have arrived.
Key lyric: “Just look for the influence, I be under that bitch.”
Rating: 8/10
3. “NY (Ned Flander)”
Features: Hodgy Beats, Tyler, the Creator
Sound: Bass bombs detonate under a tense, high piano figure.
Theme: Hysterical nihilism.
Key lyric: “Drop like the soap in the tub, and now I have famous friends who like coke in their drugs dancing with me, Jerry Sandusky, and the Pope in the club. Jerry’s trying to get a tug but isn’t paying enough. Now if he doubles it, I’ll tug it in the bathtub with bubbles and a rubber ducky that I got on tour in Kentucky with some groupies where I had got lucky with some sucky-sucky.”
Rating: 9
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4. “Ya Know”
Features: The Internet
Sound: Ultra-busy, semi-organic, spoof R&B.
Theme: The empty and arbitrary nature of club hook-ups.
Key lyric: “I think I’m starting to like this girl — or maybe I’m just twisted — so I ask her to stay.”
Rating: 6
5. “Forest Green”
Features: Mike G
Sound: Dense, upbeat, and dance-y.
Theme: Kicking it.
Key lyric: “This ain’t I easy as it looks, I just make it look good.”
Rating: 7
6. “Lean”
Features: Hodgy Beats, Domo Genesis
Sound: Smooth and slow rolling.
Theme: The swag life.
Key lyric: “I’m bubbling on you whooores.”
Rating: 6
7. “Analog 2”
Features: Tyler, Frank Ocean, Syd
Sound: Syrup-drenched pop R&B in two parts.
Theme: Adolescent romance meets adult entertainment.
Key lyric: “Meet me by the lake at 10. If I’m not there, just call. And if you need a way there, I’ll ride you on my handlebars.”
Rating: 6
8. “50”
Features: Mellowhype
Sound: Elbow-throwing hardcore.
Theme: Pure aggression.
Key lyric: “I’m straining my glottis — fucking hungry hippopotamus.”
Rating: 6
9. “Snow White”
Features: Hodgy Beats, Frank Ocean
Sound: Astringent and arty, with a woozy hook and wolf howls.
Theme: Dangers lurk in the everyday.
Key lyric: “The wolves are out in the parking lot. I don’t mean basketball when I say they be balling in the parking lot.”
Rating: 7
10. “Rella”
Features: Hodgy Beats, Domo Genesis, Tyler
Sound: Theatrical, with video game bloops.
Theme: What’s so weird about being weird?
Key lyric: “Niggas try to figure but all I hear in my interviews is, ‘Why is this so cool? You niggas are so unusual.’”
Rating: 9
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11. “Real Bitch”
Features: Mellowhype, Taco
Sound: Mindlessly self-assured.
Theme: The absurdity and twisted appeal of misogyny.
Key lyric: “[She] went to UCLA — until she met my dick. You wanted to be a doctor? I bet you did.”
Rating: 7
12. “P”
Features: Hodgy Beats, Tyler
Sound: Reserved with sudden outbursts.
Theme: Senseless violence.
Key lyric: “If another fan asks for a photo while I’m snacking on my pizza Lunchable, I’mma fucking snap, like [inaudible] when he acts right, then have a mental breakdown and proceed to use a crack pipe.”
Rating: 7
13. “White”
Features: Frank Ocean
Sound: Space-elevator music.
Theme: Time’s passing as transcendence.
Key lyric: “I don’t believe what this is can be given a name.”
Rating: 8
14. “Hcapd”
Features: Domo Genesis, Hodgy Beats, Tyler
Sound: Sleek and insistent.
Theme: The mind-altering affects of weed, fame.
Key lyric: “Chingy-chong, I’m in Japan, Cheech and Chong wrapped in Saran … Keep the bong hash in my canister.”
Rating: 6
15. “Sam (Is Dead)”
Features: Domo Genesis, Tyler
Sound: Ersatz horns and a left-right-left military-march.
Theme: Maturation and jadedness.
Key lyric: “Motherfuck Gepetto, he’s a leader, not a puppet. Some professors nuttier than [inaudible], so think before you blink an eye [and] make assumptions.”
Rating: 8
16. “Doms”
Features: Domo Genesis
Sound: Ultra-deep, ultra-dense.
Theme: Solo boasting.
Key lyric: “We did it, G — I’m higher than Asians score on SATs, and, uhhh, whatever …”
Rating: 7
17. “We Got Bitches”
Features: Tyler, Taco, Jasper Dolphin
Sound: Brazen, brassy, and dumb.
Theme: We got bitches.
Key lyric: We got bitches — we got bitches, we got bitches. We got diamonds — we got diamonds, we got diamonds. We got cars — we got cars, we got cars. We got jacuzzis — and your bitch be on my dick.”
Rating: 7
18. “Oldie”
Features: Everybody — including Earl Sweatshirt (see: key lyric, below).
Sound: Warm, full, organic, and free.
Theme: Marijuana-fueled mic-passing.
Key lyric: “Look: For contrast here’s a pair of lips, swallowing syrup and setting fire to sheriff’s whips (whoops). Fuckin’ American terrorist, crush a rapper’s larynx to feed him a fucking carrot stick. And me? I just spent a year in Paris, and I lost a little sanity to show you what hysterics is.”
Rating: 9
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Previously: Track-by-Track Breakdown: Unsane’s Bludgeoning, Brilliant “Wreck”