Hey, buddy, did you hear the news? It's track reviews.

Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you are doing well. It's a new day, and it's a new Tyler, the Creator album, Don't Tap the Glass.

The singer, rapper, producer, songwriter's latest LP just dropped and announced out of nowhere. He started posting about it on social media out of the blue, promised it would come out this morning, this Monday morning in the AM, and in fact, it did.

The project stands at 10 songs in 28 minutes. We haven't even had that much of a lead-up to even think about what this record may even be or what direction it might go in. I mean, Tyler has given us a little bit to go off of in terms of this public statement that he dropped, in terms of telling us that it's not going to be a super high concept thing, which I suppose it would be to fit a concept in 28 minutes.

But simplifying things, streamlining things might just be the move to make, considering that his last record, Chromacopia, had a lot of slower and super sad and introspective personal moments on it. Tyler is obviously an artist who has proven that he's great at making music that reaches a certain amount of emotional depth.But as evidenced by records like Call Me If You Get Lost, which personally I enjoy even more, he's an artist who can make bangers, too. But I'm getting the sense that whatever he's doing on this record, it's not going to be a repeat of that. It's going to be something of a different style, a different flavor.

Now, I want to ease myself into the record with the first single and music video from it, "Stop Playing With Me", and hopefully get a sense of what this album is all about. So let's give it a shot and see what it's got.

Okay. It's all coming together now, I think, not only in terms of some of the promo messages and images we've seen in the lead up to this new album, but also the public statement Tyler put out as well around this listening party experience that he had and talking about people dancing at the listening party.

Tyler is an artist who, over the course of his career, has made a lot of different records, a lot of different songs, a lot of different kinds of projects that have different conceptual angles to them. And of course, he's made records that are more direct and to the point as well.

But still, even though that is the case, he has, over the years, gained a bit of a reputation for being a high concept artist, being somebody whose records has a lot of depth and layers to them. I feel like partially that's because he's actually been employing more layers in-depth in his work.

But simultaneously, I do think we are existing through a pop and a mainstream music paradigm where a lot of what we are handed day in and day out is just slop and isn't meant to engage on any level other than this sounds like a vibe. I'm just going to put it on to prevent the thoughts of existential dread from entering my mind.

And so as a result, when someone like Tyler comes together with a record, even with the slightest bit of intent, and it seems like he may be shooting for this time around is an LP with a lot of dance beats on it, something that is supposed to be really visceral and to the point, something audiences are supposed to react to physically and instantaneously. Even that is going to be reacted to as if it's this major deep concept or something like that.

For sure, it is an artistic focus. But still, it's funny that Tyler needed to come onto social media to essentially warn give them a heads up, they're like, "Hey, this isn't a big high concept thing or anything like that." It's clearly because he just wants fans to feel the music and directly plug into the music.

Not only does he seem to be shooting for that with a peppier beat, a faster tempo here, but even the synthesizers in the background of this single, along with the rhythm itself and Tyler's whole style with this rollout, the bold red colors, the outfits, the no-shirt, red pants, hat combo that makes him look like a throwback LL Cool J.

It would seem he does want to bring back at least a little bit of nostalgia here and remind us of a time when one of the main pillars of hip hop culturally and functionally was dancing. A point in time when hip hop culture and B-boy culture were completely inseparable. Soul.

Now, will there be other shades of dance music in the mix on this record? Will there be tracks that maybe do a better job of evoking that nostalgia? I guess I will just have to wait and see because I have not heard the entire thing yet myself. But I will say, at the very least, this track does a pretty good job of that, again, with the grooves, with the tempo, with the dance beats.

But outside of that, it does feel like a bit of, I guess, like a standard Tyler track, that really rough and aggressive synth-based texture here. It feels like a Tyler standby at this point. His rap style hasn't changed up too much from his past couple of LPs. He's really on his, I'm the best, I'm feeling myself shit once again, which does seem to contribute to this growing hunger to truly actually be the best artistically and commercially.

It does seem like Tyler is really going for it these days in terms of actually being at the top of this genre in multiple ways. I don't know if it's the best Tyler song or single I've heard in my life, but it does function as a pretty good teaser to just introduce us to the idea that we're going to be getting something that is just more direct, more to the point, and just more based around dance grooves.

That's going to be it in terms of what I have to say about this track. Let me know what you guys think down in the comments. I'm sure you will. And yeah, thank you very much.

Anthony Fantano. Tyler, The Creator. Forever.