Flower Boy Review

Every version of Tyler before this one is a character with the volume up. Flower Boy turns it down. The subject is loneliness, stated plainly, and the arrangements finally match the ambition. See You Again is a bossa lilt with Kali Uchis on the hook. Boredom builds an entire song out of a shrug, a Rex Orange County chorus and one of the warmest progressions he has written.

Garden Shed uses Estelle and several minutes of restraint to talk about the closet without ever announcing that it is doing so. The two part 911 and Mr. Lonely is a plea for company dressed as a radio record, and Steve Lacy's guitar changes the temperature of it in a single turn. Frank Ocean shows up twice and both times sounds glad to be there. The production carries the argument: warm keys, live bass, horn stabs placed with real care, nothing shoved into the red.

Who Dat Boy keeps the old teeth, which is the right call, because the softness lands harder next to it. The back third drifts, and Droppin' Seeds and Enjoy Right Now, Today are sketches rather than songs. It hardly matters. Writers who had spent six years treating him as a provocation with beats came to this one and stayed, the decade end lists agreed, and everything he has done since starts from here.