I feel like I’m on another planet from y’all cause to put this stuff over Doris or IDLSIDGO is completely insane to me. Hell I even like the closing track of Sick > anything on this project.

dont get me wrong, i believe earl has just reached that level of diversity within such an obscure genre that every project really embodies a different vibe of earl at his peak differently
i dont know how else to explain it

i also might be biased because earl drops a project every time i fall into depression so it's literally alignment

I respect this take. What bugs me is the people acting as if what he’s doing now is just so much more brilliant and mature. Almost like my preference for his first two studio albums is a flaw on my part—as if I haven’t properly grown along with him.

Honestly if Doris was like 8-9 tracks, it’d be peak Earl. But nearly half the album was boring.

this imo

I find even the “dullest” stuff on that more engaging than anything on this or Feet of Clay.

valid, Whoa is f***ing underrated today as well as Centaurion to this day
Doris has gems for sure

He’s honestly right it’s not like you have to pay for a service or even need to get some weird app or anything you legit just go on the site and click play

W

I don’t like feet of clay or Sick

but SRS and Voir Dire are levels above Doris imo

I’m just not seeing it. I think SRS would connect with me more if it was an interesting isolated thing, but every project since has been relatively in the same ballpark stylistically. Sick! stood out positively to me (where as most of you seem to think it was underwhelming) for actually moving in a slightly different direction and bringing out moments of his older energy.

try to listen to SRS through the lens of someone whos previously dealt with heavy d*** use sobering up while dealing with a tragedy that they thought wouldnt affect him as heavily

I think you're just on the other side of what a lot of other people feel in terms of not being able to go back to anything before SRS

That stark division doesn't exist for me one way or the other but I haven't listened to anything before SRS in a long time and I just ran IDLSIDGO right now due to your post and it's still killer to me

Idk I think idls and srs are his best

I have listened to srs so much I actually can’t listen to it anymore though

FoC underrated and Doris overrated imo

I get that’s what he’s going for but like there’s other genres that tap into that experience for me better. I love a lot of folk music, but that has all these melodic sensibilities that elicit specific emotions that I just don’t feel from what Earl’s doing. He’s going for like a defeated emptiness but that emptiness doesn’t allow me to fill it back up with anything. I just leave empty.

Yeah not everyone that rocks with Earl's music SRS onward pushes everything that came before it away, was just saying there are people like that which is the other side of what @HeyFella feels

Here’s the thing though—Doris can’t really be overrated because none of you guys rank it highly anymore. Everyone in here talking about it speaks as if they’re totally above it.

i guess thats his intention, but i see why is doesnt hit for you

Believe me I really wish it did

Anyways it’s all love. Hopefully it’ll grow on me.

The way you've been talking about Earl's music in here makes me think of how it took eight years and multiple chance encounters with the music for XXX to click

Probably a top 15 album for me now

XXX is incredible. Glad you eventually came around on it so hard. Definitely in my top 15 hip-hop albums.