Tyler The Creator dropped his ninth album, DON'T TAP THE GLASS, on Monday morning, after just a couple days of notice. The album's sparked a variety of opinions, most of which lean pretty positively. However, one of the dissenting opinions on the new release comes from Mal of the New Rory and Mal podcast. The duo got into a bit of a debate about the album on the latest episode of their show.
Mal started by saying he hoped that Tyler The Creator didn't have the top rap album on the charts next week. When Rory asked why, he responded that the album was "trash" and "not it." By the time they got together to record their show, the album had only been out for a few hours, which Rory suggested was not enough time to form an opinion on a new project.
Mal conceded that he'd only heard the album "2.5 or 3" times before the show, but he was not a fan of what he heard. He did repeatedly stress that he was a fan of Tyler The Creator's music. However, the album was not hitting for him on his first listens in the way that other projects have. He also added that if he keeps listening to it, his opinion may change in the future. But he also didn't care for the "sonic risks" Tyler took. "Nothing really grabbed me and was like, 'okay, this is hard,'" Mal said.
Tyler The Creator New Album
Rory loved DON'T TAP THE GLASS, though he also admitted that he had not gotten a lot of time to sit with it. At recording time, he'd only heard the album once. However, he had a lot of praise for what he heard, particularly the last three tracks.
Rory also questioned if Tyler should start being put in conversations with the "Big 3" of Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and J. Cole, adding that his discography next to those three can be debated about. He followed that by expressing some hope that Tyler will start to drop more often. He likened his hopes to Nas and Hit-Boy's run of six albums in three years.
It will be interesting to see how the public continues to react to Tyler's surprise drop. It will also likely snag that #1 spot that Mal alluded to, but the actual number of sales will be the discussion point, especially on such short notice.
