{"id":543170,"date":"2026-07-15T19:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T19:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/543170\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T19:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T19:26:13","slug":"steve-lacy-oh-yeah-album-review-so-beautifully-fluid-lyrical-clunkers-notwithstanding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/543170\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Lacy ‘Oh yeah?’ Album Review: So Beautifully Fluid, Lyrical Clunkers Notwithstanding"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s all so fluid. The songs on Steve Lacy\u2019s new album Oh yeah? seem to spill out of him with ease, without regard for definition or expectation. Lacy\u2019s interviews about the new LP \u2014 his first since 2022\u2019s Grammy-winning Gemini Rights and its chart-topping breakout hit, \u201cBad Habit\u201d \u2014 suggest he worked harder than ever on this music, that he locked in to a new degree. That sense of intense concentration doesn\u2019t come across because the listening experience is so breezy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that Oh yeah? sounds sloppy or unfinished. It\u2019s a fully realized work, one of the most purely enjoyable albums of the year. But even at its most polished, the album moves with a pleasing looseness. Lacy says the label gave him a lot of leeway, and that does come across. You never get the sense that some executive meddled with this record or forced Lacy to create a radio-optimized \u201cBad Habit\u201d sequel. It feels more like an unguarded look into the mind of a musical prodigy as he matures into a career artist, exploring the nuances of modern romance and queer sexuality with newfound clarity.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve grown weary of journalists and music industry types pointing out that an artist\u2019s music was shaped by the internet. No shit; that\u2019s been true of every kid for the past quarter-century. At this point it would be more interesting if someone\u2019s music wasn\u2019t shaped by the internet. Please find a new framing device. That said, Lacy came of age in the Internet, the Odd Future-affiliated alt-R&B band founded by Syd and Matt Martians, which recruited him as a guitarist when he was still in high school. The group\u2019s eclectic, devil-may-care approach clearly rubbed off on Lacy, who had worked with artists as disparate as Kendrick Lamar and Vampire Weekend before he could legally drink. He may have taken even more from his proximity to fellow Odd Future affiliate Frank Ocean, this album\u2019s clearest precursor.<\/p>\n

Ocean\u2019s artfully minimalist Blonde looms large over Lacy\u2019s agile vocal melodies, his penchant for pivots that turn a song on its side, and the sparse acoustic reveries sprinkled throughout the tracklist. Yet there\u2019s a lot more going on, stylistically speaking. Just as Gemini Rights put sort of a lo-fi chillwave filter over retro rock, pop, and soul (\u201cBad Habit\u201d was the first song to simultaneously top Billboard\u2019s hip-hop, R&B, and alternative rock charts), I can hear the concurrent indie synth-psych sounds popularized by MGMT in the late 2000s and early 2010s all over Oh yeah?, from the first keyboard notes of anthemic opener \u201coh yeah\u201d to the clanging guitar textures of closer \u201cbebe.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The latter track, co-written with Lacy\u2019s writing partner Matthew Castellanos and his frequent collaborator Foushe\u00e9, exemplifies the blurring of traditions at play. Within the song\u2019s contained clamor, a regal bassline evokes Willie Hutch\u2019s \u201cI Choose You,\u201d the \u201970s soul jam that served as the foundation for \u201cInt\u2019l Players Anthem.\u201d Yet the track actually sampled on \u201cbebe\u201d comes from a far different musical tradition: \u201cRusted,\u201d an acoustic dirge from D+, the indie-pop supergroup featuring Beat Happening\u2019s Bret Lunsford, the Microphones\u2019 Phil Elverum, and Karl Blau.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Willie Hutch\u2019s swagger and D+\u2019s twee idiosyncrasies are both readily apparent in Lacy\u2019s approach, and they never feel at odds. He\u2019s fully synthesized his influences into music that manages to be deeply personal without sacrificing its big-tent appeal. On Oh yeah?, he does so with assists from an eclectic range of helpers. SZA, a boundary-flouting talent with an equally conversational approach, makes an ideal duet partner on the stripped-down banger \u201cis it cool.\u201d Erykah Badu and a sampled new age track called \u201cRoot Chakra\u201d multiply the vibes on \u201cpure color,\u201d a textured mood piece on which Lacy does his best Moses Sumney impression over a trip-hop beat. Cecile Believe, the Montreal indie synthpop artist with connections to PC Music and a past life on Sufjan Stevens\u2019 label, guests on \u201clovesexdrugbomb,\u201d a wah guitar swoon co-written by Tyler, The Creator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From Ravyn Lenae to John Carroll Kirby to Porches\u2019 Aaron Maine, the credits are strewn with fascinating names. Yet Oh yeah? does not come off like a star-studded album. It\u2019s the Steve Lacy show through and through, a stellar showcase for his gifts and proclivities. They\u2019ve rarely shined brighter than on \u201cthe feeling,\u201d an electronic hip-hop power ballad in the vein of Kanye West\u2019s \u201cRunaway,\u201d which makes emotional chord changes and indelible pop hooks (\u201cAm I your baby?\u201d) sound as effortless as breathing. Be it the easygoing pop-rock of \u201cdoom\u201d or the hectic electronic clatter of \u201cnice shoes,\u201d he sounds entirely at home, and he crams all this sonic diversity into a concise 10 tracks.<\/p>\n

Oh yeah? does have an Achilles heel: This guy\u2019s lyrics are consistently terrible. While making this album, Lacy gave up substances from coffee to edibles, believing an unaltered mind and body allowed him to create at a higher level. He told one interviewer<\/a> that his elevated devotion to his craft extends to \u201chaving the highest consideration for words and scratching beyond the surface and not being formulaic.\u201d He told another<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019ve been falling in love with writing. These are probably some of the best verses I ever wrote.\u201d I dunno, man. I haven\u2019t winced this much listening to an otherwise-excellent album since Kanye was at his peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not really about writing pop bops,\u201d Lacy said recently. \u201cI want to make music that resonates\u2026 Music I want to sing, to feel in my body\u2026 Music that helps you heal and process weird, complex emotions.\u201d Oh yeah? is that kind of record for sure, and yet: \u201cI\u2019m a big baby suckin\u2019 on big titties\/ Karma\u2019s a bitch, and I bet she\u2019s pretty.\u201d And: \u201cBeen a while since I had the coochie stuck in my teeth.\u201d And: \u201cI don’t wanna cheat no more, be no whore\/ I would rather be the one that you tell your mom about and stuff.\u201d Some lines, like the opening bars from \u201cnice shoes,\u201d are vivid and memorable enough that they circle the rim a few times and drop through the net: \u201cIf I had a dollar for the friends I would fuck\/ I could buy a pair of really nice shoes\/ Life is but a stain, it\u2019s not a tattoo\/ It’s lame to chase youth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Viewed more charitably, the sense that we\u2019re hearing Lacy\u2019s tossed-off text messages and half-baked poetry contributes to the album\u2019s free-flowing vibe. His wordplay never sounds labored (tortured, maybe), and you never wonder whether you\u2019re getting the real him. The same raw, uncut quality that makes me roll my eyes also contributes to the intimacy that permeates even the slickest moments. As with some of its guiding lights, Oh yeah? plays like a diary scrawled within a virtuosic pop album. Clunkers notwithstanding, Lacy is a magnetic creative force whose songs feel like meaningful dispatches from his generation. His charms far outweigh his flaws. Am I ready to anoint him as a genius? Not quite. But will I be returning to his album frequently? Oh yeah.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Steve Lacy – Oh yeah? [LP]<\/p>\n

Amazon(opens in new window)<\/a><\/p>\n

Oh yeah? is out 7\/17 on L-M Records\/RCA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s all so fluid. The songs on Steve Lacy\u2019s new album Oh yeah? seem to spill out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,409],"class_list":["post-543170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}