APRIL TENTH, TWENTY-TWELVE Mixtapes) to simple acceptance, in so many words (See: Pitchfork, Urb, The A.V. Club ) to outrage and dismissal (See: Cokemachineglow, Dusted Magazine, The Guardian). I've pointed you to the voices I find representative on the subject and there are many, many more out there. The rest of this review is dedicated to the mix-tape, stripped of this context, placed in a vacuum from all that discussion, like I like it. OF Tape Vol.2 is most certainly a mix-tape. It has huge jumps in quality, genre and pacing throughout its hour runtime, partially because the entire (sizable) Odd Future crew is on display. So you have the RnB styling of Frank Ocean on tracks like "White" and "Analog 2" or the electrosoul mishmash of The Internet on "Ya Know", up against a wall of rappers and beat producers. The production on these tracks engaged in a different genre are jarring when you hit them on the tape, but they do break up what is otherwise a bit of a slog. The beat making acumen of the Odd Future crew has, for me, always belonged with their defacto frontman, Tyler the
IN CUE
Creator, and he doesn't being the bottom of the really seem to be at the bottom. With nothing to rap reigns here. Instead it's about and a shitty, Hodgy Beats producing uninspired beat to rap over, most of the tracks and this there isn't much in these means a more austere, bass tracks to let the MC's shine. heavy, straight up variety of Along with "50" and "Lean" beats that are usually... and the insufferable fauxKind of boring. agro anthem "We Got the Tracks like Bitches", these "Bitches" and tracks BY THE 50TH "Snow White" highlight the aren't bad for worst of the TIME THEY their lame youthful, givePUNCTUATE A verses and no-fucks dumb names to SENTENCE WITH approach (though they rap: a dearth both have of ideas and BITCH AND those), they no quality REPEAT A WEAK control. just have beats that By the CHORUS OVER A sound 50th time they BORING ASS unfinished and punctuate a uninspired. with BEAT, THE ALBUM sentence By bitch and contrast, repeat a weak ISN’T FUN‌ tracks like the chorus over a epic, 10 boring ass minute album closer "Oldie" beat, the album isn't fun or (a great rap-group miccounter-culture or too much tradeoff in the best of the to handle, it's plain bad, by genre's tradition and way of being tiresome. definitely the best track on Compare these to songs like here) and "Doms" are the aforementioned "Oldie" served well by their austere and "Doms", as well as beats, and again, there's a "Sams" "Hcad" and "P"; all wild variety throughout this of which occur in the whole thing; including it's albums closing 27 minutes, heavily uneven pacing. and all of which show the In it's first 33 minutes, upswing of the give-noOF Tape Vol.2 runs through fucks business: they are the worst of its tracks and fun, slickly produced and they are pretty bad, showcases of undeniable "Bitches" and "Real Bitch" talent of the rhyme spitters
PAGE ELEVEN on the OF crew ("P" and "Oldie" make sure to tell you that the talent is undeniable, straight up). So OF Tape Vol.2 would all be much better if it were just a 30 minute tape of those tracks, cut with the weird RnB interludes and I guess that The Internet song too, but it isn't and instead it's a hard sell overall. As far as a showcase of OF, I think you'd be better served searching out a couple of the individual releases of the collective, if you're in the market for some intensely offensive, youthful rap and some weirdly great neo-RnB, that is. Namely: Tyler's Bastard and, to a lesser extent, Goblin; MellowHype's BlackandW hite and Frank Ocean's Nostaliga,Ultra. These are all much better albums than OF Tape Vol.2, which is not bad by any means, it just has too many songs that fall flat, are overlong, or simply have no reason to exist. Still, "Oldie"'s pretty slick, and Odd Future deserves to remain on the radar of anyone already on board. That being said, if you aren't on board already there is nothing here to sell you.