Wolf
| Tyler, the Creator
Wolf
Wolf is the second studio album by American rapper Tyler, the Creator. It was released on April 2, 2013, by Odd Future Records. The album features guest appearances from Mike G, Domo Genesis, Earl Sweatshirt, Left Brain, Hodgy Beats, Erykah Badu and Pharrell, among others. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Two years after Goblin, the Odd Future ringleader returns with an album heavy on gorgeous beats and a lyrical focus that takes aim at the band's critics and the trappings of fame.
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Billboard
Fair weathered Odd Future fans might find "Wolf" to be another notch in Tyler's dysfunctional belt. However, with a closer listen, there is an obvious growth.
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NME
Better beats, deeper storytelling - and smoking PCP with Bieber.
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AV Club
After three albums of unfiltered angst, the one-time wildcard now seems like a stubbornly static figure, an impression that’s supported by his monochromatic self-production on all of Wolf’s 18 tracks, which rarely build on the synthesized strings and tranquilized pianos of his other releases.
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Consequence of Sound
That’s the life of his mind, and inside his house, there’s plenty of room for him to succeed and fail. It’s still compelling to watch him do both.
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EARMILK
In all—though overly bi-polar at times with a clear struggle to balance maturity with Tyler’s hooligan rebel rap—Wolf is a well written, developed, and produced album, and a sure sign that Tyler The Creator is a growing artist.
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Focus Hip Hop
I love this album. It’s dope.
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Diffuser
'Wolf,' like everything Tyler touches, is an album of exposed nerves and superficial stupidity -- a messy clusterf--- of "sharting" and candy bars, death threats and family tirades, extreme beauty and exhausting ugliness. For better or worse (and usually both), Tyler -- hip-hop's self-anointed outcast -- has never sounded more like Tyler.
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Sputnik Music
Wolf certainly leaves fans wanting and wondering why an entire record of "Yonkers" or "Domo23" can't happen.
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The Quietus
But in the end, Wolf is Tyler's album through and through, a mostly diverting document of juvenile delinquency that defines him better than any prior musical effort.
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Album of the Year
Wolf overall is a major turning point in T's career, from an edgy bastard teenager, to a matured, but broken adult.
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HipHop DX
In all, Tyler is now juggling his following’s expectations with his personal growth, having transformed from a teen cult figure into a self-made visionary.
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Genius Blog
The mood is dark and solemn and emotionally, there is something everyone can probably relate to on here.
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The Line of Best Fit
Tyler, The Creator and Earl Sweatshirt, producing shocking cuts while somehow maintaining just a little something more than shock value; an artful, still budding expression of Beautiful Violence, “l’aesthetic pornographique”, as Tom Wolfe would call it.
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Hot New Hip Hop
It's all over the place but somehow remains cohesive, artistic and meaningful, and is a step in the right direction for the twenty-two year old.
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Pop Matters
This album is so enjoyable on a musical level that my qualms with Tyler as a personality are essentially nullified, but I'm not sure that will ring true for most others. It'll be interesting to see.
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Northern Transmissions
Overall, Wolf’s main drawback is its length. Fans of MTV mainstream rap will eat Wolf up, but for those expecting a bold leap of maturity from Tyler, The Creator, they’ll have to wait for the young rapper to grow up.
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SPIN
His increasing fame has made him (more) bitter and walled-off; his insistence on still shocking us threatens to reduce him to a joke.
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Esquire
It's not something that everyone wants to experience (or re-experience, as your case may be), but if you're willing to get tangled up in Tyler's neuroses, it's worth it.
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Pretty Much Amazing
Listening to Wolf, the third album from Tyler The Creator, feels a lot like going back to high school. It’s exciting, interesting, a little annoying, and it elicits a strong desire to get baked.
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Slant Magazine
While Wolf feels like progress on some fronts, it’s also a resolutely conservative effort.
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LYFSTYL
Simply put, Wolf is Tyler’s best album to date and one that no one else in the Odd Future camp could have succeeded in carrying out except the big-eared bandit. It’s beautiful, confusing, hilarious and often sad, an emotional rollercoaster that masterfully conveys the chaotic evolution of a hype magnet who never allows himself to truly admit he’s made it.
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The True Blue Note
The highs are high and the lows are low on Wolf. Despite its inherent shortcomings, the flaws on Wolf are actually some of the album’s strongest facets.
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LA Times
Tyler's "Wolf" may lack in editing and aural oomph, but it more than compensates with wit, if you can get past the way he seems to revel in tossing off invectives and then doubling back to defend them.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
Musically, it’s a step in the right direction, and it comes from one of the most exciting and anticipated rappers in the game.
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Exclaim!
Wolf shows that he's already growing into life as a smart, diverse artist.
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The Know
Whether it succeeds really depends on what your looking for — or maybe how much you can relate with Tyler. If you’re looking for beats, “Wolf” can be stellar.
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okayplayer
Now I ain't gonna front and act like this is my lane…cuz truthfully I don't fucks with this type a rap usually. But I'd also be lying thru my teeth if I said I wasn't surprised that sons album wasn't all the way trash neither.
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Fact Magazine
On Wolf, Tyler still might not have something new to say, and while he’s certainly trying, the real story of his third album is his production, which has taken an outsized step forward.
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Hype Beast
To say the least, that shift is in full effect on WOLF, and those ugly phrases are few and far between on the album. While WOLF isn’t exactly a concept piece, it may just feel like one because of how focused the sound is compared to both of Tyler’s previous LPs.
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NBHAP
No matter if you love him or hate him, whether you are into hip hop or not, he’s in any case a smart storyteller with various flow, dropping his verses on some of the freshest beats.
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NY Times
“Wolf” marks a transition to a place where knee-jerk reactions aren’t always his endpoint. He’s more measured, more reflective and couches even his most volatile thoughts in a layer of reserve.
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The Musical Hype
While his sophomore album ‘Wolf’ is still ‘rough around the edges,’ Tyler, the Creator packages the album more responsibly than ‘Goblin.’
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The Pop Break
With WOLF, Tyler has not only grown as a rapper and a producer, but also as a songwriter. And whether you support him or not, you have to respect him.
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Soul In Stereo
Wolf is proof there is true artistry in the Odd Future movement. I’m as shocked as you are.
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XXL Magazine
Much like 2011’s Goblin, Wolf is an album rife with personal confessions and controversial commentary.
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No Ripcord
Occasionally it turns out to be pretty good, even though it’s basically a middle finger to the listener, and almost impossible to relate to for the average listener who listens on their daily commute to their 9-5 job to someone moan about being rich and the wrong type of fans daring to talk to them.
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Idolator
The songs may not stick in your brain the way his most outrageous lyrics do, but ultimately, Wolf is a success because Tyler has sharpened his musical aesthetic without dampening the visceral bite of his independent roots.
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Elevator
He dropped the most planned, cohesive, and well crafted album of his career, titled Wolf.
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Independent
Wolf's mix of retro soul, moody synths and backwards beats doesn't add up to his masterpiece.
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NYD Vinyl
That said: this album sounds great and manages to have a lot of fun with some very modern beats and plenty of low end to compliment Tyler’s voice.
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Bonus Cut
Like a rollercoaster, you’ll want to experience this album over and over during the summer.
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The Fordham Ram
After a good listen, any intent music fan will find Wolf to be an intricate puzzle: It takes patience and thoughtfulness, but, even by the end of the last track, you will come to know that its Creator is still not showing all of his cards.
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The Skinny
There's a pretty strong six track EP in here, but at sixteen tracks, Wolf is mostly flab and fluff.
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Mind Equals Blown
While it isn’t as overblown and draggy as Goblin, Wolf comes across as inconsistent and unfocused.
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About to Blow
At just over seventy minutes there is an overriding feeling that a number of tracks could have been cut, and he could have put a ten track album out of more consistent quality.
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All Music
It's a fun album for fanatics, but the willingness to shock feels too comfortable at this point, so those who found it tiresome before will likely find it devastating here.
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the free press
However juvenile it may be at times, Wolf is the most imaginative hip-hop album to be released in years.
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Under the Radar Magazine
Wolf's high points come in quieter moments of thoughtfulness, usually backed by jazzy grooves that betray the lyrics' punk-rock outbursts of anger and confusion. Most of all, it reveals the harmless and empathetic character behind Tyler, the Creator's complicated persona.
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Pop Press International
Tyler is talented and Wolf showcases those skills, but to become great and to be an icon of a new movement in rap, he’ll need to reflect on his game moving forward.
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Seeds Entertainment
“Wolf” isn’t a perfect album. Its overly long length and continued reliance on cheap gay slurs keep it from being a masterpiece. But it is Tyler’s most consistent album and his best work to date.
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The Lakeland Mirror
I have been extremely critical of this album, but in the end this is a good album.
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NOW Magazine
Though the whimsical Neptunes-esque aesthetic and soused snares are a retread, the self-produced record shows that his strengths are in production.
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Spectrum Culture
While this album may be the last of his three “sessions” with his “therapist,” it’s a strong end to his beginning.
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DIY
‘Wolf’ certainly retains the irreverent, self-contradictory and generally unhinged nature of all Tyler’s back catalogue.
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brent music reviews
Wolf is edgier than many efforts, by all means.
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Cognitiv3 Dissident
I was really quite sad to see Wolf end.
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Beats Per Minute
However, if he’s at all serious about his hip-hop career, he’s gonna have to get used to people taking him seriously. And Wolf is a serious mess.
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Opinionated Opinion
To conclude, ‘WOLF’ is a breaking point for Tyler. It shows that he is capable of mixing various genres together through only one or two instruments, that he is a great and vivid storyteller and a Hip-Hop artist who makes Hip-Hop the way they want it to sound.
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The 5th Element
I dig it, and I actually find this Tyler less gimmicky and more genuine.
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Stash Everything
Yet with the album clocking itself in at over 70 minutes in length, these shortcomings seem less intrusive and can be fairly easily brushed over, as there is much more to enjoy.
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