With his fifth studio album, IGOR, Tyler, the Creator shows us where he’s been headed all along.
MUCH LIKE THE story of the doomed Greek Titan and fire thief named in its subtitle, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is a cautionary tale about the dark side of ambition. The mad Dr. Frankenstein’s grisly experiment in replicating the gift of human life brings him pain, failure, and death. Prometheus’s reward for granting humanity the gift of fire was exquisite torment and the grief of knowing his blessing led to a great deal of warring and suffering. You can get what you want if you try, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, but you’re in for a mess if you haven’t considered the consequences.
Odd Future’s game plan at the top of the decade seemed to be to topple the existing idols and stomp on the broken pieces. If you made it into a room to see the collective perform live in the year it released Earl, Rolling Papers, Bastard, and BlackenedWhite, you were treated to a carnival of youth rage whose point, if you could see past the veneer of chaos and gore, was that the way we run things is wrong and there’ll be hell to pay if we don’t change. The kids were all right; we’re closing the decade in more of a mess than we started it in. What they didn’t see coming is what happens after you incite a revolution. Eventually, iconoclasts have to learn how to be icons and work harder than their predecessors or be brought low by a new generation of feisty youths like themselves. It’s poetic: Be better or be broken.
This story is from the May 27 - June 9, 2019 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the May 27 - June 9, 2019 edition of New York magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.