Music can serve as a porthole into someone’s soul. A slight glance at what makes a person them, or what they are feeling at anytime. 

Currently on my playlist, I have several songs. Most of these songs are by Tyler, the Creator. Most notably his 4th studio album, Flower Boy. Flower Boy is a deep dive into Tyler’s emotions and true feelings, with themes of loneliness, depression, anxiety, love and trying to fill in the empty parts of you. 

I fall in line with all of these things, along with Tyler’s interests in cars throughout the album, and his fears of spiraling down, and wondering if he will understand everything if he does. Specifically in “911/Mr. Lonely”, it shows this split of the surface level happiness in “911”, into the sad, angry and full out understanding of true emotions in “Mr. Lonely”. It carries throughout several songs, going from the first track “Foreword”, which includes muddled and melancholy tones. But the next track, titled “Where This Flower Blooms”, has more bright and sunny vibes, which includes some confidence yet still holding the unsure aspects of himself. 

Several tracks later, there’s an upbeat and love-filled song titled “Glitter” in which Tyler fully opens and expresses how much he feels for someone, which is continued throughout in portions, most notably in the track “See You Again”. See You Again describes Tyler’s feelings towards a certain person, and includes vocal tracks of Kali Uchis. But even in the romantic backdrops, Tyler’s true emotions remain clouded through his 2nd Verse. His confusing emotions throughout the album continue in another track titled “Pothole”, which shows that people should abandon relationships and only trust and focus on themselves. 

I relate to almost all of these emotions, the unsureness, the anger and sadness behind it. But just like the songs, he can’t stick to one idea. He can’t always be the lovey and bubbly person, and he can’t always be the cynical, angry person. It’s the duality of people, I can’t be the happy-go-lucky person some want all the time, and I definitely can’t be the serious and professional person some want. 

But the last three songs on my playlist aren’t connected, but feel like a ballad of emotions. The first song is “No Plan” by Hozier, which has pessimistic undertones and shows that despite being upbeat, you can still fall into a pattern of accepting doom and wanting love. My favorite lyrics is,”sit in and watch the sunlight fade”. The connotation is that bad things happen and sometimes, you have no control of it and have to just keep going. Now I believe the tempo and beat of this song flows well into the next song, as if its a change of my mood. 

The next track being “Deathcamp” by Tyler off of his third studio album, Cherry Bomb. It’s a hard rock/rap tune, referencing not liking the way people are treating him, or the social side of it. The song also shows the anger in confusion and the outlash of being told what to do and being forced into a box. And the next song, “I’m Trying” by Yeek is almost a direct correlation, like the end of it. He explains how no matter how much he tries all he hears is complaints, and he feels he isn’t good enough. He also feels like the person is trying to change him. The last three songs all correlate with the begining song being “No Plan” showing the acceptance of the end, and the knowledge of not being able to live peacefully and just having to accept it. Then moves into “Cherry Bomb” which is angry and lashing out at the world for the way it treats them. And it ends with “I’m Trying”, which is bringing up how all they hear are bad things about what he does, but he’s just trying to be better.