In fact, it's one of the strongest albums of the year. What's truly remarkable, and a lasting testament to Ty's abilities, is that the hodgepodge of a final product isn't total garbage. It's still a stronger track than most on the frankenstein version of Free TC we've received, and its uplifting, bold sound and message fit the album's tone much more than, say, "Actress." Instead, the forward-thinking production and Ty's solid control of songwriting on "Stand For" have been shooed out in favor of familiar faces and sounds. " Stand For," released as the album's lead single last November, ended up being a toe dipped into the waters of commercial viability by Atlantic, as it failed to connect on the radio and isn't included on the album that arrived a year later. Since then, he's been shamelessly pawned out to struggling Atlantic artists (Stalley, Victoria Monet, Diggy Simmons) for personality-starved features, and like the artists mentioned above, endured pushback after pushback on his passion project, Free TC.
It took over three months for his label to replace original guest Joe Moses with B.o.B and repurpose it as a shiny new single and package it, along with an additional remix, onto an EP (nowadays the go-to "oh shit we promised you an album but we think it would flop right now" format). Ty Dolla $ign's biggest hit to date is still "Paranoid," a 2013 track that first appeared on a mixtape that wasn't his. But R&B's artsy middle class- singers/producers who want to make sprawling, baroque compositions- have largely been left out to dry. Less artsy, more commercially tried-and-true capital-S singers Chris Brown and Trey Songz have seen their careers more or less uninterrupted by this pattern, and more alternative-skewing artists such as Miguel and The Weeknd (the latter of whom totally upended that identity with his most recent string of hits) have managed to find strong core audiences. Then there’s Jeremih, something of the poster child for this subset of would-be stars, whose Late Nights tape promised a revamped career, but has only been followed up by years of album delays. A similar outcome for Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange has seemingly forced its creator into hermitage.
The-Dream has only managed to sputter out inconsistent EPs since his critically adored, commercially underperforming Love ( Hate, Vs. Something about the current configuration of the major label industry has proven particularly unfair for R&B auteurs. Ty Dolla $ign comes through with one of the strongest, most diverse R&B albums of the year.