IGOR explained

Most of us are familiar with themes in narrative art—in movies, TV shows, books, albums. Themes are broader concepts created by repeated (and often contrasting) elements. For example, a theme in Disney's Aladdin is "how wealthy you are doesn't define how good of a person you are." A theme in Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the excess of celebrity: that celebrity involves too much power, monstrous indulgence, and appalling materialism.

But theme has a more nuanced application when it comes to music theory, usually in combination with the concept of variations. Here's a description by Jeremy Denk, a famous pianist, in an interview with Classic FM: "It's an idea [theme] with a number of riffs on the idea [variation]—in all kinds of styles and moods...You take the theme, you take the original idea and you begin to alter it or add things to it."

The implication, then, of "Igor's Theme" is this serves as an establishment of musical and lyrical concepts that the rest of IGOR will alter, add to, and riff on. This helps explain why the lyrics here are fragmented and repetitious in a way that doesn't happen elsewhere. Rather than a song that's describing a specific emotion or event, it's a painter showing you the palette with all the smears of colors that'll be part of the painting.

Attached: Tyler-the-Creator-IGOR.jpg (320x320, 20K)

Other urls found in this thread:

forbes.com/sites/chrislambert/2019/05/21/igor-explained-a-guide-to-the-story-themes-and-devices-of-tyler-the-creators-2019-album
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Despite the overall chaos of "Igor's Theme," two main phrases emerge:

-Ridin' round town, they gon' feel this one

-Got my eyes open

The first is immediately relevant, as the following song, "Earfquake," has a chorus of: Cause you make my earth quake, oh, you make my earth quake/riding around, your love is shakin' me up and it's making my heart break.

Ridin' round town is used nearly verbatim. But the second part of the original idea, they gon' feel this one, is riffed upon. Instead of declaring someone will feel something, Tyler describes what he feels: a love is shaking him up, making his heart break.

The second phrase doesn't appear until the final line of the last verse of track 9, "What's Good." Tyler raps, And I got my eyes open, now I see the light. Contextually, this follows the previous track's decisive twist: Tyler has come to his senses, realizes the relationship is bad for him, and so decides he must move on.

The prominence and dominance of those two phrases (and their fragmentations) on "Igor's Theme" serves, then, as a microcosm of the album as a whole. Part 1 is an emotional journey that you feel. Part 2 is about awareness/seeing things for what they are/moving on.

A major consideration for writers is how much they show versus how much they tell. Mark Twain could have simply said, "Tom Sawyer was a very bright kid, able to convince other kids to do anything, whether it was good for them or not." Instead, Mark Twain showed us by creating a whole scene where Tom Sawyer has to paint a fence as punishment but manipulates the other neighborhood kids to do the chore for him. And they actually pay him for the chance.

As with most things, a balance of showing and telling allows a work to have nuance but still be accessible. If it's all showing, you end up with deep-but-obtuse results that polarize audiences, like 2001: a Space Odyssey or The Sound and the Fury. If it's all telling, you run the risk of sounding like a children's book. Both have strengths and weaknesses.

An excellent example of balance comes from Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly. Over the course of TPAB, Kendrick reads out, at the end of certain songs, increasing amounts of a 24-line poem. Track 3 reveals only the first line. Track 5 increases the total to six lines. Track 7 adds two more. The surprise is that the poem (which you don't hear in-full until the final track) is a summary of To Pimp A Butterfly's narrative. So at the end of Track 5, the chunk of poem finishes with "Found myself screaming in a hotel room." The very next song ("u") just so happens to have Kendrick screaming in a hotel room.

Show-heavy works, like To Pimp a Butterfly, will often include specific moments of telling that help audiences understand what's happened and why. I call these moments in-roads.

On IGOR, Tyler uses quotes from Jerrod Carmichael, comedian and long-time collaborator, as in-roads similar to Kendrick's poem.

-Exactly what you run from, you end up chasing....Giving it everything that you can. There's always an obstacle. (track 3)

-Sometimes you gotta close a door to open a window. (track 5)

-But at some point, you come to your senses. (track 8)

-I don't know what's harder, letting go or just being okay with it. (track 9)

-I hate wasted potential, that shit crushes your spirit. (track 10)

Each quote provides context for the songs that follow. Tyler is both fearful of and longing for his unnamed love interest. The "obstacle" is the girlfriend Tyler's guy won't kick to the curb. This love triangle plays out throughout Part 1, with the girl eventually becoming a door that Tyler would like to close. Part 2 contains the last three quotes, all of which deal with what happens when you start moving on.

For anyone who can't add up what's happening on IGOR through the lyrics alone, Carmichael's quotes tell you what you need to know—making it easier, hopefully, to decode the album (or at least a song or two).

The major in-road for Igor is on "What's Good." Specifically, the first and last lines of the opening verse: Turn my lights on...if the cop says my name, bitch, I'm Igor.

"What's Good" is the 9th track on IGOR. It might seem strange to not have the title-character make an appearance until 75% through the story, but it makes sense in terms of the story's progression.

Leading up to Igor's arrival, Tyler's spent the album detailing this complicated love triangle where he's seeing this guy who's also seeing some girl. Tyler's frustrated because the guy won't commit either way. All the while, Tyler's a mess, caught between wanting to love and the fear of being unloved. We get the highs ("Earfquake") and the lows ("New Magic Wand"). It isn't until track 7 ("A Boy Is A Gun") that Tyler first starts breaking away.

>I'ma leave us as friends
>'Cause the irony is I don't wanna see you again
>Stay the fuck away from me

On the following track, "Puppet," a similar rejection happens after Tyler is, once again, giving all he can. And, once again, this guy can't focus on Tyler and is concerned about this other person (the girl, presented here as Rudolph).

You're number one, one on my list, to you I'm Santa

Where is Rudolph? You're parasitic

I do not have self-control

I am starting to wonder

Is this my free will or yours?

"Puppet" ends with:

- Kanye telling Tyler to Breathe on a song.
- A pitched-up Tyler (or someone) saying Cut me loose.
- Jerrod Carmichael stating, "But at some point, you come to your senses."
- Tyler often uses the final moments of one song as a segue to the next. For example. At the end of "I Don't Love You Anymore" he starts to speculate: But this might just be better for us, you kn—. The line implies that maybe they can have a relationship that isn't romantic. In other words, friendship. The next track? "Are We Still Friends?"

Tyler often uses the final moments of one song as a segue to the next. For example. At the end of "I Don't Love You Anymore" he starts to speculate: But this might just be better for us, you kn—. The line implies that maybe they can have a relationship that isn't romantic. In other words, friendship. The next track? "Are We Still Friends?"

A similar thing happens throughout his previous album, Flower Boy. "November" ends with a voicemail recording saying no one can take the call, to leave a message. The next song, "Glitter," an emotional outpouring, ends with the same voicemail system saying, We didn't get your message, either because you were not speaking or because of a bad connection. The attempted voicemail is a narrative device that ties two songs together. Otherwise, listeners might not view them as intercontextual.

Given Tyler's repeated use of connecting one song to the next, it becomes clear the end of "Puppet" is about the arrival of this Igor persona. This was actually foreshadowed on "Igor's Theme." There, we hear He's coming as the last line of the intro and bridge. And then a singular, semi-haunting Igor soon follows.

Cut me loose can be understood, then, as "Igor" talking to Tyler. That request gets restated as the opening line of "What's Good." Turn my lights on.

As Tyler comes to his senses, he's able to tap into the darker, less-romantic side of him that had defined his discography and public reputation to this point. It recalls the don't-give-any-fucks attitude of the skater punk who made Bastard, Goblin, and Wolf. All archetypes associated with unruly attitudes. It's fitting, then, that How the fuck you quiet with the mic on? is the rhetorical question that follows Turn my lights on. Igor has, indeed, arrived.

Tyler, having suffered in love, seeks to re-empower himself through a turned-up, loud-as-fuck display of ego and bravado. I think you can describe this kind of venting and forcefulness as "breathing on a song." By breathing, by cutting loose, Tyler, as Igor, can reset from the "flower boy" who was so in love. I got my eyes open, now I see the light.

Generically, "Igor" is considered an archetype in Gothic-inspired stories. A physically deformed lab assistant who works with scientists and monsters. The figure is most-often associated with Dr. Frankenstein. There are certainly discussions to have about how that archetype applies to Tyler. I don't want to get into them here, as, for the most part, I don't think they're necessary to explaining the core story and themes

damn nigga

lol this