To mark the first anniversary of his 8th studio album “CHROMAKOPIA,” Tyler, the Creator released a deluxe edition of the album to streaming services on Oct. 29. 

“CHROMAKOPIA” is Tyler, the Creator’s most personal project to date, with the songs exploring topics including anxiety, pregnancy scares and finding out his father wanted to be a part of his life. This album also received five Grammy-nomminations at the 68th Grammy Awards happening next year, marking Tyler’s most nominated album in his whole career.

The deluxe album added one new song from the original test pressing of the album, called “Mother,” which is great for fans of the song, but was it really necessary?

“Mother” | 8/10

“Mother” is a song that clearly deserved to be on the original album but was scrapped for not fitting the main theme of the album. On the original test pressing of the album, this song was the 11th track before being swapped out for “Balloon (feat. Doechii).” This version of “Mother” for the deluxe album is a reworked version of the test pressing song. 

“Mother” is a song focused on Tyler’s relationship with his mother, who is also the narrator of the album, and his early childhood. Tyler talks about how he never fit in as a kid and was also abandoned by his father at a young age. He also talked about his mother’s life before the rapper was born and after in her perspective.

This song overall is way better than the original test press version which could only be listened to on physical copies of the album released during 2024. It has a way better intro and hook while also keeping a lot of the original aspects that fans and critics loved. Even though this song is good, I still feel like it should have remained off of the album track list and should have just been a single release. 

“CHROMOKOPIA+” | Waste of time

Put the pitch forks down for a moment and hear me out. Chromokopia itself as an album is a very strong, beautiful, original-sounding album that deserves a 8.5 at the least. I personally think this album is a solid 9/10 and is placed comfortably third in his discography. All the problems I have to say for this album is for how the deluxe is handled. 

“CHROMOKOPIA+” can easily be described as sitting through a pointless work meeting that could have been an email. “Mother” should have been a single and not a full album release. Yes, I understand why Tyler put the track into a deluxe album because this one song is now going to be a part of the physical albums track list, such as CDs and vinyls, but there were other parts of the album I wanted to see from past editions.

One, I still am a firm believer that the final verses on the album are really good and should stay, but I would have loved to see Playboi Carti’s on “Thought I was Dead.” Now, Schoolboy Q killed his verse and so did Tyler and Saintgold, but that voice of Playboi Carti’s adds texture and range to the song. I get the reason why, the verse on the test pressing was mumbly and by far Carti’s worst verse of the year, but it would be nice to hear the intro of his verse as a bridge into other verses.

This album still upholds his music quality and standards, but I would have also liked to see some other songs chopped from the final album list.

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