I'd semi-intentionally avoided the last several Tyler, the Creator albums, but people have been so over the moon about this that I had to check it out. A negative: Tyler's voice and delivery are so distinctive that it's virtually impossible to separate this from his prior work (a problem if you haven't been a diehard throughout). A positive: this thing is legitimately good. For the most part, its lowest points are still massive improvements upon the sort of things that Anderson Paak and Childish Gambino are doing nowadays, and the highs not only build upon but legitimize the years of weird half-baked ideas that have littered his previous albums. The reception's a little bit overblown, I think, but it's without a doubt the best Tyler, the Creator album that Tyler, the Creator has made. For someone who makes fandom as difficult as he does, that's a real triumph; it's an uncommon album that both repents for and expands upon the body of work that precedes it.

Highlights: I Ain't Got Time!, Pothole (ft. Jaden Smith), November