IGOR's Hidden Story EXPLAINED • Tyler, The Creator 1 Year Later

to me Igor is tied with the creators best album it is also somehow the most different and mainstream unorthodox and yet best received by critics all at once I'm feeling a decent to a strong nine on this thing where flower boy felt like a familiar Tyler displaying more sides to him conveying hidden feelings and his capacity to make a grand concept album Igor succeeds were flower boy falls short Igor is more than an album it's an experience and a hero's journey it follows a three-act story structure with protagonists side characters reoccurring musical motifs and much more in my opinion it is closer to a musical than it is to a rap album as even Tyler said don't expect a rap album despite its win at the Grammys for that very category I don't know how you could call it any one genre with a range as wide as this Chucky was Dracula Dracula [Music] Tyler first gave us a taste of Igor's world with lists a surreal image of many Tyler's holding still set to a rough gravelly tone in an untitled video that abruptly cuts off only to be retitled later something he did with several other song visuals pre album release it went on to become the title track igor steam and movies often their original score or original music features character themes that occur when important character thematic events take place take rays theme from Star Wars as an example Igor is the story of toxic infatuation not love or a crush but rather the gross hooks that sinks their way into our brain when we feel we need someone even if it is illogical or bringing our own demise like a drug this is captured perfectly in the second taste of the album pre-release the album covers a dark disheveled underbelly look of Tyler and noir black and white under toned by a lush pink from the past the color scheme and tone juxtaposition would go on to be the perfect summary for the sound of album which is filled with the deep gravelly sound of Igor's theme on every track undertoned by beautiful lush sound reminiscent of the 80s a time where romance and unrequited love ballets were famously common tyler dave noticed minutes before the album's release that the best way to hear igor for the first time is with full attention no pausing and no skipping he said if you wish to ride a bike go for a walk or listen with friends he encourages you to do so as it is an album he wants you to hear in a happy place he instructed to expect nothing as it is unequivocally not any of his past albums but rather a special experiment that he hopes we like and even in the post album release interviews he was seemingly very surprised that we liked it as much as we did he just wanted us to listen with an open mind in an open year and appreciate the details knowing how different it would be with all this setting the tone of what to expect before listening it was clear this would be an album as raw and from the heart as the protagonist on the cover Igor's theme paints a picture of someone riding around phew that way illustrating a man who was swept away with feeling a perfect segue into earthquake a song literally about being so sucked to the core by another person that they make their entire world shake in the next track I think Igor confirms that our suspicions we have are true these feelings are indeed about love and this time it's for real emblem attic of the feelings one may have when they can't help but think that their feelings towards a new person are larger than any love or crush that they've had before even if you haven't known them for that long it starts with a raw roughly mixed drum pattern that makes me picture Igor stumbling to find his footing and figure out what has happened to him after he has had his earthquake akin to a poem in a novel setting the tone Jerrod Carmichael and our first interlude then suggests that life is about giving things you want everything you can set to beautiful piano a motif used in the lighter parts of the album similar to words of encouragement one gives themselves to decide that their feelings are correct and worth exploring [Music] a feeling all too familiar in adolescence when you feel you only have a certain window of time to convince someone who you're crazy about that they're the one for you not wanting to be forgotten there friend-zoned igor must have them to be complete after a short history together and possibly some toxic behavior from Igor's clearly intense and volatile nature he pleads please don't go it's my fault accepting that it's his fault the relationship is in a bad place but not accepting that it should be over Egor plays the card of desperate lover he is willing to throw himself under the bus tweeting it's my fault for the sake of preserving this arrangement and is here we must ask is it Igor's fault or is he an unreliable narrator is he trying to play victim and Gaslight his lover into staying or is he gaslighting himself to stay with an abuser who was trying to leave him for his own betterment this is all speculative and we will never have a firm answer but the exploration of what happens when we make ourselves into a martyr for the sake of what we deemed to be love can be powerful as it defines what we value in ourselves and our relationships our narrator Jerrod Carmichael reminds us like a midni Vil stanza break that sometimes you need to close a door to open a window meaning that sometimes closing a door on a possibility you will likely never have is what you need to do to escape the burning building that you're currently in Igor does not take the window yet leaving the door open to plead one last time in on this very song new magic wand he pleads please don't leave me over and over until it is the next song a boy is a gun where he is similarly pleading don't shoot me down this is the first time he shows some self-awareness knowing that a boy is a gun and they have the ability to shoot him romantically but also mentally and this may be his final chance for sanity puppet igor is past and mitting blame and is now putting his soul on the line for claiming that whatever their wishes it can be granted he can be the lover they most desire sacrificing his own dignity and life if needed this is akin to an infatuated person deciding that their crush is so crucial to their soul being complete they would rather change their soul altogether than find a new way to fulfill it accompanied by a nostalgic like wind of Kanye West's voice giving us in coherent murmurings of finally catching a breath and lighting up some weed Igor starts to finally come back to reality as this can only go on so long jerrod the narrator tells us but at some point you come to your senses in what's good Igor rides the track in the most hip-hop style the entire album seemingly tearing down everything around him he thought was real from rudolph the even claiming it's hard to believe in God when there's no miracles around the hard-hitting beats would shift and thump around or emblematic of the psychological change that Igor's monsters undergoing no longer under his lovers spell this track feels as though he needs to exert this energy to prove to himself that he's back as he wraps in the hook I see the light I see the light in God gone / thank you Tyler takes a more appreciative approach to moving on singing gleefully my love's gone a sad fact stated with artificial joy like when you force a smile onto your face hoping that it eventually turns into a real one claiming at least I had it instead of never as to reconcile with this partner not being the one only to be followed by the thank you outro thanking the partner for all the love and all the joy they allowed him to feel having looked himself in the mirror finally admitting to himself the damage he has done Igor needs to convince his brain that this is all wrong villainizing the lover proclaiming I don't love you anymore with a hostile tone the album crescendos with one last volatile crush of Igor's toxic nature clearly not full ready to move on screaming can we still be friends something an ex may ask with the subconscious hope that it will one day lead to something more again because if you can still be friends who's to say one day you won't be compatible the way you used to be this album may be a masterpiece turning the clearly partially real and raw feelings of a recently outed bisexual young man into a grand Ballad of heartache and toxic thinking that all of us are partially familiar with one way or the other whether it is Igor's theme present on every track or the arrangements that perfectly go from one song into the next tyler has made more than an album he made a story a story where the music's featured musicians are not obtrusive or overly drawn attention to but rather are featured players interwoven into the DNA of the music akin to actors in a play or members of a band all contributing to one common goal in this case being the music the story and most importantly the feeling while some may critique Igor to be immature with its lyricism and subject-matter I find those very listeners to be the most immature of all as they are not able to realize that sometimes art is conceptual and not literal and sometimes we all have thoughts as dark and toxic as the album cover to Igor looks even if we do not act on them and for Tyler to sprawl out these corrosive feelings as they happen to him in real time in the form of this lush raw album I think that is a gift as it is better to expunge himself of these feelings in the form of song where others can reflect than it would be for him to be Igor in real life this was Zane berry from tall skeleton have a nice night [Music] you

Channel: Tall Skeleton

Views: 424,951

Keywords: Tyler the creator, igor, call me by your name, earfquake, video essay, story structure, hidden story, stories like old, nerdwriter, nerdstalgic, middle 8, volksgeist, new magic wand, thank you gone gone, igor’s theme, love, summer 2020, tiktok, hiphop, rap, music essay, music analysis, tall skeleton, zane berry, playboy carti, kk slider, flower boy, dreamlike romance, a boy is a gun, dissect podcast, dissect, brockhampton

Id: JuLbuxxnZQg

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Sun May 17 2020