It’s time to reflect on the year in music! This month, we’ll be highlighting Jam of Today’s favourite albums of 2025. Working our way up to the #1 album, which will be revealed on the 31st of December, we’ll go one by one past this year’s favourites. Today, our #25: ‘DON’T TAP THE GLASS‘ by Tyler, The Creator.

I don’t necessarily know why but on July 21st I picked up on Tyler, The Creator’s brand new album ‘DON’T TAP THE GLASS’ and decided to give it a spin. It marked the first time listening to an album by the Californian rapper since ‘IGOR’, his 2019-album which was up until this point the only album I ever played by the artist. Never having been an outspoken hip-hop or Tyler, The Creator fan myself, spinning ‘DON’T TAP THE GLASS’ reminded me of the joy one can experience listening to music without having any expectations whatsoever.

Whether it would’ve been a good or a bad one, it didn’t really matter to me. Either way I would probably continue my life without thinking too much of it. That was kind of the mindset I had going into this release. Especially since ‘DON’T TAP THE GLASS’ is less than 30 minutes long, it wouldn’t feel like a waste of time if I didn’t like it. See, about 95% of the time, I listen to new albums with some kind of expectation but the fact I didn’t have any this time created a bit of a ‘right place, right time’ kind of moment when I actually did take a liking to it. It made me realise what a fun way of enjoying music this is; by not being an outspoken fan of one or another and just taking it as it comes. It creates a possibility of being taken by surprise and it’s safe to say this album did that to me. Small side note: I do of course know Tyler, The Creator as an extremely talented and creative artist able to produce some very high quality music so I suppose I did expect an overall good album, whether it would be up to my taste or not.

Actually, listening to album opener ‘Big Poe’ already tells you a lot of what you need to know. This song, featuring Pharrell Williams as Sk8brd, samples elements from ‘Roked’, a song by Israeli qawwali musician Shye Ben Tzur (ft. Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express) as well as the 1969 Moog-song ‘Hey Hey’ (Gershon Kingsley) and Busta Rhymes’ ‘Pass the Courvoisier Part II’, creating one hell of an opener. Taking it back to the core of sampling, this song is such a fun way of kicking off this album and makes you hungry for more. Luckily, more comes in the way of hit single ’Sugar On My Tongue’, the album’s most popular song having charted in many countries on this globe and being supported by a brilliant music video of which we have seen many of by Tyler, The Creator in the past. Following smooth transitions from the short ‘Mommanem’ into ‘Stop Playing With Me’ and later on ‘Don’t You Worry Baby’ comfortably flowing into ‘I’ll Take Care of You’, this album flies by rapidly and contains so many pleasant tunes that you almost forget you’re listening to a full album rather than a playlist full of catchy songs. A further highlight comes in the form of ‘Ring Ring Ring’, in my opinion the best song on the album sampling Ray Parker, Jr.’s ‘All in the Way You Get Down’ and overall being an extremely well produced song. I would’ve highlighted this song here today if it wasn’t for ‘Sugar On My Tongue’ having a music video worth sharing, though I do want to share Tyler’s performance of ‘Ring Ring Ring’ at Camp Flog Gnaw 2025, also for the sake of pointing out this amazing set design.

Across this album and in the above mentioned performance, Tyler, The Creator is actively playing with the Michael Jackson image and obviously paying tribute to the King of Pop on several occasions. Whereas you need to be really careful with certain comparisons, I think I would take a chance and naming Tyler, The Creator the MJ of this generation. A lot of what this artist does turns to gold and even though you might not be a fan whatsoever, there’s still so much to enjoy about the content he releases: ‘DON’T TAP THE GLASS’ is a prime example.