CHROMAKOPIA, Tyler, The Creator’s new record, is arguably one of the biggest releases of 2024. Fans and haters alike were sharpening their knives and polishing their silverware ready to devour whatever Tyler had cooked over the last three years. The wait was over on Monday, Oct. 28, and all the hungry were fed.

It is almost as if Tyler, The Creator has been training us like Pavlov’s dogs. Musically, CHROMAKOPIA offers only a slight divergence from what has become Tyler’s trademarked style. Heavy with marching band and choir music inspiration, layers on layers on layers of vocals and bass lines, some serious jazz rap elements, gospel-like intros and outros to most songs: the best of what we have come to love about Tyler, The Creator’s music is there, with a cherry on top and wrapped with a bow. The songs flow seamlessly, indicating that he has, once again, written this album for vinyl. I can only imagine how much better of an experience it would have been if I had listened to it on vinyl and with a stereo surround sound system… Alas. The record still gets your head bobbing to the beat even if you listen to it on your overworked laptop speakers or 5-year-old earphones. I hope Tyler will understand.

There is definitely a fear he would not approve. With this album, he is definitely more particular about how one listens to it than what one listens to. What started a lot of the buzz around the album was its release date. Since 2015 the standard release date for all labels had been changed from Tuesday to Friday, based on polls with listeners who reported spending more time listening to music over the weekend. There is something to it, really. We do tend to have more free time on Saturdays and Sundays. Yet I am skeptical that it is spent sitting down and listening to the new records that have come out on Friday. Music listening no longer happens like that for the majority of people, not even for those who live off of music as if it is an essential part of their diet or what they would need dripping from an IV to sustain them. Music listening, especially on the weekends, has shifted to clubs, to social media platforms, to gatherings over charcuterie boards… something that Tyler called “passive listening” in his 2023 interview with Nardwuar.

In that same interview, he does not call for the kind of music listening where you close yourself off in a soundproof booth, crank the headphones, and do not do anything else but listen, transcribe lyrics and analyze beats and double entendres (who does that even… not me for sure). The active listening Tyler, The Creator tries to promote with this Monday release is during commutes. Whether you are driving to work, riding the bus to school, or walking to and around the grocery store, those are the moments to live with the music. Surprisingly, those really are the times when one is fully immersed in their own bubble and very little of the outside world shines through.

CHROMAKOPIA is not club music. I can barely imagine it even being performed at a concert. It is not an album you can slice into tracks and choreograph. Though Tyler, the Creator is surely more imaginative and creative than I am, so do look out for new tour dates, he should definitely be one of the artists you pre-order tickets to see live. Still, it is a deeply personal album, both for the artists featured on it (I can write a whole other article just about them, they are all spectacular) and for the listeners. So I encourage you to find that moment of rest and relaxation when you can truly appreciate CHROMAKOPIA’s richness before you jump into the crowd in front of the stage and rave.