Overview
After the release of the acclaimed success Flower Boy and the award-winning conceptual album Igor, Tyler’s next step in his music career seemed unclear. Unlike other artists who botched the cooking after one or two successful releases, Tyler doesn’t push past formulas. Instead, he tries a freer approach without giving in to the pressure of having to make a super conceptual and disruptive album.
Pros
Call Me If You Get Lost is longer than its predecessors and seems to navigate without a specific direction, different from the two aforementioned albums. That’s not necessarily a problem, and in this case, it’s clearly not. A lot of disjointed ideas are thrown into this album and DJ Drama’s excellent work acted as the perfect glue for this organized storm.
The feeling of this album is often that we are listening to an old album by a rap group from the past, and this vibe is very present in many tracks that work well this atmosphere, with lyrics talking about luxuries, travelling, vacation and how it has been his trajectory so far. Some more romantic songs have a nostalgic air of 90’s rap, while other tracks bring a totally different air with melodies songs inspired by French Jazz, R&B and even Bossa Nova. It’s clear that Tyler is a curator of music from several different genres and likes to take a little here and a little there, and this curation done with a high level production makes the result of the project very interesting.
Cons
The album is a little longer than it needed to be. Despite not having any weak songs, some tracks on this album doesn’t seem to add much to the mix, turning the experience into something a little bit more diluted than it needed to be. Some topics start to get repetitive after a while and many songs you will simply forget because they are overshadowed by other tracks that serve the same purpose inside this album, but are better performed.
Track by Track
The album starts with the opening SIR BAUDELAIR, a good and warm start for the album, very calm, but already showing that Tyler is putting some work into the production of this album. The next track is CORSO, a much more energetic song, with great choirs, great vocals and some “weird” synths as a Tylers signature. Great transitions and very enthusiastic song. LEMONADE takes the energy from the previous track and explodes on a lower key. It’s a more furious song, it works really well, but it feels a little monochromatic. Anyway, is a great song and 42 Dugg’s vocals work well in this one.
The song WUSYONAME was one of the first to be teased before the album’s release, and it has a more romantic effect, sometimes sounding like an old school love rap song from the 90's. One of my favorite songs on the album and the first one released before the album itself. The track LUMBERJACK reminds me of some of Tyler’s older projects, like Goblin. It is strong, energetic and chaotic. It would be a great surprise for the fans to listen to a song like that in the middle of this specific album if they heard the song for the first time when the album was released and not before. But it works perfectly and is definitely going to be a fan favorite.
HOT WIND BLOWS is a very surprising song to me and probably my personal favorite, because while a lot of people saw it as just a Jazz inspired song, to me it sounds a lot more like a French Jazz or even a Bossa Nova inspired song. As a brazilian, I loved hearing those chord progressions and those beautiful backvocals working perfectly together. A exotic vibe that made me feel like listening to some brazilian rapper like Marcelo D2. Lil Wayne participation in this song works kind of well, but I would probably prefer to listen to other names instead of his in this track. The rythm stars to slow down a little bit with MASSA. This is not a bad point, it is still a great song, brings some Flower Boy aspect to the album, and it fits good as a pleasurable breath from the previous tracks. RUNITUP brings some new production levels to this project too. Great transitions, surprised me for doing a good job with a just a very simple “main theme” and a simple chorus.
MANIFESTO is a very strong track, bringing to light some current controversial issues, with various moments and a much more agressive progression with great transitions and some high quality production. The long track SWEET/I THINK YOU WANTED TO DANCE is one of the most romantic songs on the album. It has a different approach than any other Tyler song, you can say that because it’s a 9 minute long song. It progresses to a few different layers during the entire song, goes through a really melodic 80s romantic song, goes through a reagge vibe in the middle and ends up with a more jazzy vibe. It’s a mix of different genres and in a weird way it all fits together really well, showing how conscientious they are in producing and arranging all these different ideas to put them all together, feeling like they fit together.
MOMMA TALK is a great interlude through songs and honors his mother with her talk about how protetive she was about her kids. RISE is a good song, but it starts to feel like more of the same. It has a good colaboration with Daisy World, but unfortunately it doesn’t shine when compared to other tracks of this album. With BLESSED we have another interlude that doesn’t make to much sense to exist. It is not bad, but doesn’t add to much to the project. When we fell like the album is getting to an unclimatic ending, JUGGERNOUT show up to be the one of the strongest and best bangers of this album, for sure. This song revives the spirits with hand-picked guest appearances. WILSHIRE it’s a song about broken relationships, and it’s a very minimalist song compared to other tracks on this album, but it works well despite not being any standout. SAFARI works great as a closure, talking about travelling and the world and his vacation, but it ends the project with a celebratory vibe of the excellent work that Tyler and Dj Drama have done on this project.
My personal conclusion
Call Me If You Get Lost celebrates Tyler’s freedom, here he shows that he’s comfortable making an album that doesn’t necessarily needs to be totally conceptual and can simply talk about what he’s feeling at the moment, celebrating his trajectory, laughing at the controversies surrounding his name and bringing his desire to see the world again post pandemic. Tyler and DJ Drama did a great job with this album and I hope they can do more projects together in the future.
It’s not a perfect album, but I must say, as a fan, that I’m very happy to see a great and consistent album after the release of two albums that are very hard to beat. It doesn’t have as many remarkable hits as Flower Boy had, and it’s not as complex and strong a project as Igor’s, but it certainly shows that Tyler isn’t just a young rapper who makes inconsistent songs, he has matured and knows very well what to do with his career and how to handle criticism.
