Cherry Bomb (album)

Background

In November 2014, Larry Fitzmaurice wrote a piece for The Fader magazine, giving details about a forthcoming album from Tyler, The Creator. This project features a multitude of guests, but likely no features from other Odd Future members, the rap group of which he is the face of, stating: "Everyone's on their own island." Tyler cited artist Stevie Wonder as his inspiration for the album. Associate editor of The Fader, Matthew Trammel, reported that the album would feature Tyler lyrically tackling many current social issues. Trammel noted that "[Tyler] offers up heavy-handed indictments of gang culture and rapper consumerism, calling them detrimental not just to the progress of his race, but to humanity as a whole."

Promotion

On April 9, 2015, Rap-Up reported that Tyler had announced his Cherry Bomb Tour, which will visit various locations around the world, starting with his live debut of songs from the album at Coachella on April 11, to September 13, in Tokyo. On the same day, after announcing his Golf Media app and Golf Magazine, Tyler released a music video for the song "Fucking Young" on the app and on YouTube. Tyler announced on Twitter that Cherry Bomb will receive a physical release two weeks, after its digital release and it would have five different album covers.

Singles

On April 9, 2015, the lead and second single, "Deathcamp" and "Fucking Young / Perfect" was released consecutively on iTunes Store, and was made availably for download before the album's release. The music video for "Fucking Young" contains a snippet of an accompanying music video for "Deathcamp".

Other songs

On October 1, 2015, a dual music video for "Buffalo" and "Find Your Wings" was released to the Odd Future YouTube channel. The video for "Buffalo" features Tyler, with his entire body painted white, escaping a hanging, then being chased by an all black angry mob. The "Find Your Wings" portion of the video features Tyler and other backing members of Odd Future performing the song on a show stylized as a 1970s music show.

Critical reception

Cherry Bomb received generally positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 69, based on 23 reviews. David Jeffries of AllMusic said, "Returning customers who like Tyler the ringleader, or Tyler the producer, will find this to be too much of a good thing, and can embrace the free-form Cherry Bomb as another freaky trip worth taking." Angel Diaz of Complex said, "Cherry Bomb is Tyler greatest creation to date. However, the album is bit of a mess in the beginning, and while Tyler's grown immensely as a producer, his rapping isn't consistently up to par." The Guardian's Paul Lester described the album's sound as "fizzy sonics and lush eruptions of synths and strings" in his 3/5 star review for the album, whilst also noting the influence of N.E.R.D, comparing the opening song "Deathcamp" to N.E.R.D's 2001 release "Lapdance".

Kellan Miller of HipHopDX said, "Musically, he is maturing before our very eyes." Louis Pattison of NME said, "Cherry Bomb might be the tightest, leanest Tyler album yet." Matthew Ramirez of Pitchfork said, "His greatest strength has always been world-building, using a synth-heavy blitz of candy-colored jazz chords taken straight (sometimes blatantly so) from the Pharrell handbook. Cherry Bomb isn't exactly a hard left turn from this lane, but it is a quick swerve." Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone said, "Tyler's self-produced new one flows from the Neptunes tribute "Deathcamp" to the summery whimsy of "Find Your Wings"." Dean Van Nguyen of Clash said, "If anything, the album is held back by his ambition—imprudent testing falls short of his usual standards. There are lessons to be learned here, and as a document of Tyler's growth, this may well be looked back upon as a watershed moment."

Tom Breihan, writing for Stereogum, felt the album was "cluttered and chaotic" but also believed it to be an improvement on Tyler's previous studio album Wolf (2013). Breihan also praised the album's musical choices for being "brave and commendable" but added that "I'm not sure they add up to a great song." Calum Slingerland of Exclaim! praised Tyler's work with R&B and soul music sounds on "Find Your Wings" and "Fucking Young", though their juxtaposition with moments of poorly-mixed, blown out aggression lessened their effect. Rachel Chesbrough of XXL said, "Cherry Bomb is his greatest achievement thus far, solidifying his place in the game, with or without the conspicuously absent Odd Future crew." Evan Rytlewski of The A.V. Club said, "For all their blown-out abrasion, though, Tyler's harder tracks never dazzle the way West's industrial experiments did. They merely cloy." Andrew Unterberger of Spin said, "Cherry Bomb is both impressive in its ambition and absolutely stunning in its aimlessness, weaving countless genres into multi-part suites but still coming off undercooked in its entirety."

For its mid-year list, Complex listed Cherry Bomb at number 34, while Vice placed it at number 43 on its "50 Best Albums of 2015" ranking.

Track listing

All tracks written and produced by Tyler, The Creator, unless otherwise noted.

Notes

Sample credits