rating: ★★★

Tyler, the Creator and his cohorts have taken over The Internet.

That’s the name of the newest project to come from hip-hop collective Odd Future and Purple Naked Ladies marks the first album to be officially released under their own record label. It is a collaboration between two of the gang’s producers, Syd Tha Kid and Matt Martians. Martians is also a member of producing duo The Jet Age of Tomorrow who have released two free mixtapes of primarily instrumentals. Still, this is really the first time that these two members have taken a more primary role in the group.

The album is a sort of experimental hip-hop/soul-jazz fusion that comes off really well in the production, with lots of interesting and original combinations and patterns that build and slow at all the right moments. It is easily the best-produced album that Odd Future has released and it’s clear the producing duo put a lot of work into it. Each song is textured so well that it feels fresh even with multiple listens. This type of production is not often heard in music such as this and it is what makes the album worth a listen.

Vocals and lyrics are where Purple Naked Ladies loses its momentum. Syd is the primary vocalist on these tracks other than the occasional guest spot. She is by no means a bad singer, but she just sings in an extremely light tone with no real pitch shifts or passion to take note of. For some songs it works very well — for others, not so much. In the end, hearing that same tone of singing with only slight alterations for the album’s solid 41-minute runtime definitely wears out its welcome.

The other vocalists featured on the album are much better singers than Syd and it’s almost embarrassing how much she is overpowered. Perhaps this would be a much stronger album if the vocals were done primarily by guest artists offering much more variety and stronger vocals to complement the pretty fantastic production. While listening to the album, I often wished for it to be an instrumental LP, because most of the time it feels like the vocals are just in the way of the music.

Lyrically, there is absolutely nothing going on here to sink your teeth into unless you really enjoy hearing clichés. Most of the tracks are just Syd singing about much she loves some girl or how she just wants to have fun with another girl.

The song “Cocaine,” written by rapper Speak! who also co-wrote Kreayshawn’s “Gucci Gucci,” has to be the most boring and pointless drug song I have ever heard. The gist of the lyrics comes down to, “Do you want to do some cocaine?” or stereotypical ways of pressuring the girl Syd is hitting on into doing coke. It is just all around pointless and doesn’t even really display the strong pro-drug message it’s trying to promote. Odd Future is a collective known for their hard-hitting, aggressive lyrics. While this song is admittedly not trying to be aggressive, there is still no impact to the words at all. Such a lack of lyrical impact makes a lot of the songs forgettable.

The production is still pretty excellent and is able to outshine a lot of the weaker points in the vocal and songwriting departments. The Internet is an interesting debut that shows a ton of potential but they need to sort out whether Syd is strong enough to front the project or if they need to rely on guest vocals. Either way, The Internet should be on your radar for the coming years as they grow. This album is definitely a solid base for them to build on.

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