This is my interpretation of Earl’s work. My interpretations about the events that he describes could be very wrong, because I am not him.

Doris is definitely one of my favorite albums of all time. Every song is filled with captivating lyricism and cutting edge production. Doris is a dark tale about a kid who is just trying to be himself, sick and tired of always being at the bottom, until he rises up and makes a beautiful reflection of his life, showing people that he has greatness in him.

At first I thought Doris was named after Earl’s grandmother who was dying at the time of the making of this album. However Earl said he just really likes old names. He says he feels old, he’s old in spirit, but not maturity. Doris just felt right to him, it displayed how he perceived himself. The album name was the first step to showing that Doris represented Earl.

The album cover is extremely iconic because it not only displays the raw energy of the album, but it also just looks dope. The font on the cover matches the aesthetic of the album. The mustard yellow abstract lettering on the black and white background looks like someone squirted a bottle of mustard on to a old, nostalgic family photo. This cover connects backs to Earl’s roots of feeling old.

Out of the 15 songs on Doris, 11 have at least one feature. Normally I would consider this leaning on others too much, but Doris doesn’t feel like an “Earl Sweatshirt and friends” album; it feels like Earl already made a masterpiece, and then he said “I can make it better” and added more people. Because that’s all the features do, add more quality to the album. Even though Earl has all these other voices and ideas on the album, his life is still clearly reflected.

Usually if an album’s production is similar it hurts the album. Personally I like a lot of variety for beats on a album, but that is not the case for Doris. Earl also produces a lot on this album, under the name Randomblackdude, which is definitely the reason why the vocals and the beats sound so in sync and made for each other.  Of his goal when producing he says, “When I’m producing I want some weirdo hippy shit.” It’s awesome. He wants his beats to present themselves the same way he presents himself.

All of these quantities combine to display Earl’s ability to make a piece of art and cement his place among the rappers that can who can truly express themselves on a complete album. This album is my go to when I need to express my passionate feelings, either in anger or in happiness.

Track-by-Track Review

I recommend listening to each song as you’re reading.

The first track, titled “Pre” doesn’t have a hook or a chorus. Earl starts the album off with an excellent display of bars. “I’m a problem to n*ggas, pop artillery, the carbonates with him, Starving to hit ’em, spar with a n*gga, Just watch, I’mma kill ’em all in a minute, It’s the ticket-dodging aristocrat, New b*tch, whip with the system slaps”. SK La’Flare also provides some excellent bars and really matches Earl’s performance. I’ve had the line “I go the extra mile, I am with the extras, extended clips shoot through your necklace” in my head for years. The delivery of that line is legendary because you can hear the passion in his voice. The beat on “Pre” is a mixture of a booming 808, tender and caring high hats, a synthesizer that pairs perfectly with the 808 like Batman and Robin, and another synthesizer that sounds like an interstellar adventure

The next track, “Burgundy”, is one of the only tracks on the album not produced by Earl. Pharrell and the Neptunes are the guest producers and they do quite a good job. Before I go into how it sounds, I think it’s important to state that this beat was mostly made by Chad Hugo and not Pharrell. Apparently Pharrell was focused on making Blurred Lines for Robin Thicke. It is kinda funny that both these songs were made in the same room at the same time. (Also blurred lines glorifies rape don’t listen to it.) The beat on “Burgundy” sounds like a classic Neptunes beat, an imitation of a live band. The sound that really gets me is the drums. They are so hard hitting on this track and really fill the room. They drown the other sounds out in a good way. “Burgundy” is all about Earl growing up and having to deal with all of these expectations of how he is supposed to live his life. The song also tackles Earl dealing with fame, his elderly grandmother being sick, and living up to his dad, a famous South African poet.

“20 Wave Caps” is one of my favorite songs on the album. The song brings back a lot of memories of my friends and I sitting on my friend’s roof on a nice summer day. Domo and Earl’s performance is exquisite. The beat is abstract and reminds me of a Jackson Pollock painting. The leading sound is a mixture of horns, organs, and bells with a solid backup of muffled drums. The organ part is more chopped up in Domo’s verse. There’s a lot of stopping with certain parts of the instrumentals mid way. It’s like Earl went to an orchestra and recorded each member playing and then threw it in a blender.

The fourth song on Doris is an outlier. “Sunday” takes a step back from the “no-chorus-super-reliant-on-wordplay-that-doesn’t-really-tell-a-story” formula. This song is a mature reflection on relationships, fame and marijuana. The song starts out blunt, with Earl rapping, “I know it don’t seem difficult to hit you up, but you not passionate. About half the sh*t that you into, and I ain’t havin’ it”. Earl wants the relationship to work but there are more cons than pros. Earl doesn’t really feel a lot of passion and interest when they are together, but when he is with her “the dark isn’t coming.” The girl feels that Earl isn’t paying her enough attention, but Earl argues that he works incredibly hard. He is also tempted by all of the things that come with fame: money, drugs, and women, so he feels he should not be penalized for being extremely good at the thing he loves. He realizes that the simple things are the best. That’s why he stays with her; she provides this comfort that he can only find in her or in making music. Earl also understands the reason why he is famous and is presented with all these temptations: he is excellent at what he does. He’s Earl Sweatshirt. The beat mimics the song. During the verse it gives you this abstract feeling almost identical to daydreaming. Then, this hard hitting guitar brings you back to earth. Frank Ocean kills his feature, which is very simple and typical Frank Ocean.

The next track, “Hive,” is extremely important to me. This was the first rap song I learned all the words to. If you asked me my top five songs in no order, I would say this song first. I love this song so much. I have listened to this song in the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I will never pass up an opportunity to scream “RIDE DIRTY IS THE F*CKING SKY THAT YOU PRAYING TO”. The raw power that seeps through my headphones into my ears is exquisite. The beat is extremely simple with only five sounds: The opening of a door that could be confused for a sound that is heard right before someone gets murdered in scary movie, a ghostly synth that sounds like a bunch of male angels singing to you about your untimely demise, very precise and unique high hats, the signature muffled drums, and (the driving voice of the song) the bass. The bass could be compared a old rock star playing with hate and demise but the end result is a good representation of all of his work. This song also demonstrates Vince Staples and Earl’s unique and legendary team up. Earl said that whenever he makes music with Vince, he’s pushed to be his best, “I like to keep Vince around when I’m writing shit, cause I think he’s better than me, it makes me work really hard”. Vince encourages other people to do their best and kill it because he doesn’t need encouragement, he needs competition. “Vince loves having the last verse on a song because there is nothing you can do.” He made Earl kill it, now he’s got to murder the beat. In this song Vince sounds hungry, every word he says is like he’s fighting to prove himself. Casey Veggies has a small but necessary role in the song. He only raps a few bars, but he comes up with the catchphrase of the song, “Like its nothing, cause it’s nothing B*****TCH”. When I first listened to the song and Earl finished his verse I thought: “well that’s incredible, but it’s over now and that sucks,” but then Vince comes in and matches Earl’s verse. One of the hardest questions I’ve been asked is “who has a better verse on Hive?” To this day, I still can’t answer it.

“Chum” is another song on Doris with a story behind it. Earl tells about the times he was stuck in Samoa at a boarding school. He also describes his time meeting Tyler the Creator. Tyler saw something in Earl that not a lot of others did. “Too black for the white kids, too white for the Blacks.” The beat is a “piano beat,” and it’s one of the most destructive piano beats I’ve ever heard. It’s just the muffled drums, a TV fuzz-like sound, and a unique and standout piano line.

“Sasquatch” is just a fun song. The song’s quality, mixing, and sound is professional, but the attitude is not. I think this is the first song that I listened to off of Doris. I remember going up to my friend and yelling “THE KLU KLUX KLAN SEES ME AND MY MANAGERS.” The duo use funny and offensive lyrics to convey their “give-no-f*cks” attitude. Tyler and Earl rap about kidnapping One Direction fans, ordering Taco Bell, Tyler’s tooth gap – which apparently attracts a lot of females, their “squadron full of lost souls”, and their aggressive, weed-infused journeys. The beat, produced by Tyler, follows in the footsteps of the previous records. It features some murderous strings with a noise that sounds like someone took apart a washing machine and then put all those parts in another washing machine. The (at this point typical) muffled drums are traded in for some straight forward drum kits. The Last component is a mediocre bass line

“Centorian” is a song that sounds like you’re going to a place that you don’t want to go and you should not be going there. The song starts off with an extremely dry and fear inducing verse from Vince Staples. The beat for Vince’s part relies on big muffled bass and these horns that sound like they would be played at the funeral for Satan. The bridge is this random man screaming something that I can’t understand. Then Earl starts rapping and out of nowhere these up tempo, marching band-esque, drums blow you out of the water. Suddenly, the song goes from a dark quiet cult meeting, to a car chase down a busy city street in the dead of night. Earl goes off, talking about fighting people, “the closed fist chronicles,” and going on car rides with people you don’t want to ride in cars with, “deep in the Civic with the evilest n**gas this side of the Mississippi, all courtesy of Vincent from n**gas who plot against, Ear-L-double-S, hear shells from the Tec, hear in full-effect, eat a d*ck and cut a check, b*tch, few n**gas I’m on a first-name basis with address me by the alias, that trunk weighted like he ‘Bout to catch a case again.” This song is scary, but nonetheless an absolute banger.

“523” is an instrumental break on the album. Nothing to see here, keep moving.

The only purpose that “Uncle Al” serves is to show off Earl’s tricky wordplay and his producing. There’s not really any meat on this thing.

“Guild” is especially sad, now that Mac Miller has passed away. It follows Earl and Mac’s signature formula when making songs together. They pitch down their voices and adopt different personas (Delusional Thomas = Mac Miller and Bill = Earl). This Randomblackdude-produced beat features the signature muffled drums and high hats, thunderous bass, some nice bells, and a chilling synth. My favorite line is “I’m Ron Burgundy mixed with Hercules.” Earl continues with the low key attitude that mac starts with and finishes the song smoothly.

If Doris was a day where there was twenty-three hours of darkness and one hour of sunlight, “Molasses” is that one hour. “Molasses” is a fun, upbeat adventure that Earl and RZA guide the listener on. The RZA produced beat reminds me of a scene in one of the those old cowboys movies where the cowboy defeats the villain and gets the girl. The bass guitar and drums pair nicely like water and a man who just ran a 5k in 100-degree weather. Like almost every hip hop beat, there is a lot of repetition, but for some reason this beat is different. It’s like a monk who tells the same story over and over again because there is an important lesson to be learned. RZA relies heavily on samples for this beat and creatively mixes the sounds. When Earl raps on this song it’s extremely hard for me to not rap along. The bars are infectious and makes your head bob back and forth. The only thing I wish was different about this song was that it was longer.

“Whoa” has the same aesthetic as “Sasquatch.” It’s Earl and Tyler just doing what they do best, messing around using intricate raps. The tongue twister mentality is a huge presence on this song. “Whoa” is one of the few songs with a chorus. Tyler raps “It’s the G-O-L-F dub(W)-A-N-G”, Golf Wang AKA Wolf Gang, is another name for Tyler and Earl’s super-group Odd Future.  Earl was in Odd Future from the beginning to the end of the collective. However when they just started to rise and really take over, he was nowhere to be found (because he was in Samoa). The beat is produced by Tyler and features some very nice drums, a piano bridge, another synth that sounds like a demonic choir, and a kind of annoying synth that sounds like an alien abduction.

“Hoarse” is produced by Badbadnotgood, and is one of the best songs on the album. Badbadnotgood takes all of the best sounds from Doris; the horror movie noises, the muffled drums, the fear-inducing bass and guitar parts, and the calm and soothing synths. This is probably the second best song on the album if it was solely rated on Earl’s rhymes. He rides the beat like an experienced surfer with only the intention being to shred the gnar. Overall 10/10.

On “Knight”, the last song on Doris, Doms and Earl reminisce on the past. As they are both rapping their voices slowly fade and get pitched down. It’s like they are showing the transition from the beginning to the end of their lives, slow and inevitable. The beat, produced by Christian Rich, is a beautiful mixture of drums and a very nice sample. The sample is a beautiful R&B rip that reminds me of a young singer serenading a married couple. The organs on this beat are subtle and powerful.

Doris by Earl Sweatshirt is an extremely good album. It has stuck with me for years and hopefully I will keep listening to it for the rest of my life. Earl Sweatshirt solidified himself as one of the greatest lyricists of the 21st century with this album. When he drops another album, possibly before the end of the year, I will be extremely happy. However I will never forget Doris, an album where Earl creates this amazing energy that could only be compared to giant Vikings with bat wings wearing bandannas riding down a Los Angeles street on skateboards on the way to break windows and smoke marijuana until they’re as “loopy as a motherf*cking toucan”.