Following the success of 2021’s Rap Album of the year, “Call Me if You Get Lost,” we see Tyler return under his Sir Baudelaire persona to add to the 16-track knockout of the original album. “Call Me If You Get Lost: The Estate Sale,” is the deluxe version of the original released on March 31 through Columbia and Sony. With eight more tracks, including a heartfelt thank you from Tyler himself, the project punches in over one hour and 17 minutes.
Teased with the lead singles “DOGTOOTH,” “SORRY NOT SORRY” and “WHARF TALK” Tyler returns to his most successful project to date. Following up a standout album with more standout songs is a complicated challenge. But as he’s proved before, Tyler’s ear for tracks is immaculate and the throwaways chosen would be at home on the original cut. For brevity, we’ll focus only on the newest eight tracks since the original album has too much depth on its own.
Because the deluxe takes place outside of the story of the original album, there’s a lot less cohesion in the songs. However, the storytelling told by each of them is impressive within their own rights. As expected Tyler’s ever-maturing sound has gone from “I’m an angry 17-year-old” to “I’m a stern and confident 31-year-old.” With rapping and production becoming tighter and more refined it’s allowed him to start a three-album Grammy run mimicking the pattern of Kendrick circa 2013-2017.
On tracks like “WHARF TALK” and “DOGTOOTH” Tyler is suave and sexy in a way that’s oddly surprising. Giving us lines like “She could ride my face, I don’t want nothing in return,” Tyler creates a new tagline for munches all season (God bless). Leaning heavily into his increasingly confident approach to his bisexuality is working well for him. Long gone are the days of ambiguity that plagued “Flower Boy” in exchange for direct lines like “Sorry to the guys I had to hide” on “SORRY NOT SORRY”.
The feature set is surprisingly well rounded with frequent collaborators Vince Staples and A$AP Rocky appearing on the bombastic “STUNTMAN” and colorful “WHARF TALK.”.The contrast between Vince’s gangster-inspired lyrics and Tyler’s denouncement of guns creates an interesting dynamic between the two. As California natives and former members of Odd Future, their chemistry is a well-documented one. The same can be said about A$AP Rocky and Tyler’s best friend dynamic that’s given us stand-out hits like “Who Dat Boy,” “Potato Salad” and “Lost and Found Freestyle”.
A far more surprising collaboration might be YG, another California native and one of the biggest figures in the West-coast rap game. YG comes in swinging on “BOYFRIEND, GIRLFRIEND,” a demo recorded all the way back in 2020, that sees Tyler performing his full gamut of rapping, singing,,and producing alongside a neo-soul beat.
“The Estate Sale” raises a crucial question about the world of deluxe albums. With the length of albums varying wildly, a deluxe album can either be a godsend or a death wish to avid listeners. Take Chris Brown’s “Indigo,” a 32-long project spanning two hours. Now process that slowly and then consider that “Indigo (Extended)” is two hours and 39 minutes long which is longer than “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.” At that point, it’s just gluttonous to release an album that long. My eyes roll freely like marbles the amount of time I’ve listened to a Drake project and have gotten bored of the filler. This is Tyler’s first hour-plus album since “Wolf” but even from start to finish, the whole thing never feels like a chore. This is what a deluxe album should be, and when done correctly we get gems like this.
4.5/5
