Denzel Curry — TA13OO ANALYSIS & REVIEW
Published 08/03/2018
This album really exemplifies a lot of enticing sides to rap — strong simple beats, vocal versatility, hypnotizing basslines, and forceful dynamics. It also showcases one stylistic downfall — melodic rhythm — that couldn’t quite allow the fire to fully ignite. The positives are more enveloping and ultimately hit harder than the negative, though. Regardless of what could be improved, know that this album can still be enjoyed by absolutely any listener, and should be considered a work of real gravity in the rap world today.
I enjoyed the minimalist harmonic movement throughout, as when employed, the simple, single basslines never strayed away from giving no-nonsense grooves with easy scalar passages or pedal tone dominance to drive the mood home. In this atmosphere, there was no need to go on any drastic harmonic journeys or sprinkle ounces of surprise into the structure; the selling point was the single repetitive background line that bashes you over the head, and for the most, this album was quite successful in that regard. The first three songs employed a more chordal, lighter, and detached harmonic structure, and while cool in its own right and still giving a sense of home and relaxed feeling, Curry did find a bit more connection and excitement when dimming it down to simple repetitions. The fourth song “Sumo” displays that perfectly, hitting like a wonderfully placed bomb in the work with an emphatic, straightforward bassline that gave a secondary, more uplifting feeling that was mostly there to stay.
It’s unfortunate that “Sumo” also had one of the most lackluster melodic layers; not every repetition of material was a delight. In fact, there was a big separation between intrigue of pitched repetition and intrigue of rhythmic repetition. The bass, the shaped lines in the sung vocals when present, and the added thin synth layers were tight in their delivery of emotional hype through minor modes and understandable but fun kernels of material. The rhythm, though, stuck to rather prescribed and uninteresting patterns for about 2/3 of the music. On top of the rather invigorating instrumental foundation was often an overly basic strict triplet rhythm, straight eighths, or another small rhythmic motive made of the simplest of rhythmic patterns that didn’t match the energy or emotion of the surrounding atmosphere. Let it be clear that I certainly have no problem with the triplet rhythm as an isolated tool; I only have a problem when a simple tool like that is overused to the point of boredom or obvious lack of thought. It didn’t quite reach that low of a level here, though; I don’t consider anything about this work to be too boring or careless.
About 1/3 of the time, melodic rhythm actually found delightful action and purposeful direction, and it was those moments that indeed let the positives outweigh the negatives, and what separates Curry from much of the “Soundcloud rapper” pack. The song “The Blackest Balloon” was the only song that I felt had a compelling rhythmic motive used in the voice, moving away from straight identical rhythms with a nice mix of quarters and eighths. However, when dropping the need for motivic organization and moving to a more freestyle flow, as in the songs “Black Balloons” and “Sirens”, that was where talent seemed to be maximized and everything truly came together. The song “Perks” did this the best in my opinion, having the expertly crafted simple, fun foundation with a sweet repetitive synth scalar pattern and pairing that with a forefront, gritty melodic delivery that had just enough rhythmic diversity, being what the song “Sumo” could have been.
This album goes to show you that the instrumentation on paper and past stylistic expectations don’t, or at least shouldn’t, play a part on how one judges music. Any musician could’ve easily taken this exact set-up, sound library, and lyrical content, and messed it all up to the point of being unlistenable. In fact, some musicians basically have. What matters is how these tools here, as minimal and as familiar as they are, were used to create a cohesive, directive, and energizing feel. Despite nothing catching me by real surprise and wearing its positives and negatives on its sleeve throughout, I couldn’t help but smile through most of it. Aside from the song “Clout Cobain”, which tried to highlight a very dull melodic motive while not giving any enhanced timbral layer or influential harmony, there was something pleasing to be found on every track. Yes, I think Curry fell into too many pitfalls with his over-reliance on identical, repetitive rhythms, but that’s something that can be fixed. He already showed quite an ability to break out of that rut in a few tracks here. While I myself may only want to revisit a couple of songs again, know that I think any true fan of rap should be all over this, and that I enjoyed listening to a musician using mostly ordinary and historically unimaginative tactics in a rather inventive, positive way.
