Cherry Bomb

## Covers

The main Cherry Bomb coverFour alternate Cherry Bomb covers
## Background

In November 2014, Larry Fitzmaurice wrote a piece for *The Fader* magazine, giving details about a follow-up to Tyler, the Creator's second studio album, *Wolf* (2013). Fitzmaurice wrote the album features a multitude of guests, but likely no features from other Odd Future members, the rap group of which Tyler is the face, stating: "Everyone's on their own island." Tyler cited artist Stevie Wonder as his inspiration for the album. Associate editor of *The Fader*, Matthew Trammel, reported that the album would feature Tyler lyrically tackling many current social issues. Trammel noted that "[Tyler] offers up heavy-handed indictments of gang culture and rapper consumerism, calling them detrimental not just to the progress of his race, but to humanity as a whole". Guests that were rumored to appear included Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Keyshia Cole, Cherry Glazerr, Leon Ware and Kali Uchis.

## Critical Reception

*Cherry Bomb* was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 69, based on 23 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 6.0 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

David Jeffries of AllMusic said, "Returning customers who like Tyler the ringleader, or Tyler the producer, will find this to be too much of a good thing, and can embrace the free-form *Cherry Bomb* as another freaky trip worth taking". Angel Diaz of *Complex* said, "*Cherry Bomb* is Tyler's greatest creation to date. However, the album is bit of a mess in the beginning, and while Tyler's grown immensely as a producer, his rapping isn't consistently up to par". *The Guardian*'s Paul Lester described the album's sound as "fizzy sonics and lush eruptions of synths and strings" in his 3/5 star review for the album, whilst also noting the influence of N.E.R.D, comparing the opening song "Deathcamp" to N.E.R.D's 2001 release "Lapdance".

Kellan Miller of *HipHopDX* said, "Musically, he is maturing before our very eyes". Louis Pattison of *NME* said, "*Cherry Bomb* might be the tightest, leanest Tyler album yet". Matthew Ramirez of *Pitchfork* said, "His greatest strength has always been world-building, using a synth-heavy blitz of candy-colored jazz chords taken straight (sometimes blatantly so) from the Pharrell handbook. *Cherry Bomb* isn't exactly a hard left turn from this lane, but it is a quick swerve". Jon Dolan of *Rolling Stone* said, "Tyler's self-produced new one flows from the Neptunes tribute "Deathcamp" to the summery whimsy of "Find Your Wings"". Dean Van Nguyen of *Clash* said, "If anything, the album is held back by his ambition—imprudent testing falls short of his usual standards. There are lessons to be learned here, and as a document of Tyler's growth, this may well be looked back upon as a watershed moment".

Tom Breihan, writing for *Stereogum*, felt the album was "cluttered and chaotic" but also believed it to be an improvement on Tyler's previous studio album *Wolf* (2013). Breihan also praised the album's musical choices for being "brave and commendable" but added that "I'm not sure they add up to a great song". Calum Slingerland of *Exclaim!* praised Tyler's work with R&B and soul music sounds on "Find Your Wings" and "Fucking Young", though their juxtaposition with moments of poorly-mixed, blown out aggression lessened their effect. Rachel Chesbrough of *XXL* said, "*Cherry Bomb* is his greatest achievement thus far, solidifying his place in the game, with or without the conspicuously absent Odd Future crew". Evan Rytlewski of *The A.V. Club* said, "For all their blown-out abrasion, though, Tyler's harder tracks never dazzle the way West's industrial experiments did. They merely cloy". Andrew Unterberger of *Spin* said, "*Cherry Bomb* is both impressive in its ambition and absolutely stunning in its aimlessness, weaving countless genres into multi-part suites but still coming off undercooked in its entirety".