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12:17 · 1,985 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- The two former Odd Future members have worked together on more than a dozen tracks, which is the scale that makes the pairing a body of work rather than a few guest spots.
▶ 00:00:23
- She, from Goblin, is the template: Frank's smooth chorus set against Tyler's quirky production, with Tyler's verses pulling the track somewhere unsettling.
▶ 00:01:19
- On Super Rich Kids the roles flip. Pharrell produces, the track is light and breezy, and both of them write around the downside of the person they are describing.
▶ 00:02:03
- Oldie, the ten-minute Odd Future posse cut, is where the contrast is clearest, Tyler running stream-of-consciousness wordplay and pop-culture references while Frank's verse turns inward on his own route to success.
▶ 00:03:06
- Tyler's closing verse on Oldie is the serious turn, addressing black kids in the suburbs who were called weird for their interests, and telling them to hold onto it.
▶ 00:04:05
- Tyler's account of the early days is the human core of the video: Frank already had a car and a house and kept telling him not to worry, and took him into studios he had never been in.
▶ 00:04:38
- Flower Boy and Blonde are treated as the turn, a more reflective Tyler and a Frank pushing against conventional album shape, after which their styles start to fit rather than clash.
▶ 00:05:37
- Biking, which premiered on Frank's Blonded radio a year after Blonde, has both of them writing about the same activity from opposite angles, Frank on self-reliance and Tyler on the thrill of the ride.
▶ 00:05:55
- Slater, from Wolf, is five years earlier and already about the bike, with Frank's interlude mocking Tyler for writing a song about it, which is the joke Biking later pays off.
▶ 00:09:33
- Tyler's account of making 911 / Mr. Lonely is the best studio story here: he had the bridge he had always wanted to make, Frank came by, went in and started making phone noises, and it stayed.
▶ 00:10:36