Steve Lacy - Oh yeah? (First Thoughts)

A deliberate left turn from Gemini Rights

"Oh yeah?" is the kind of opener that makes you sit down and get ready for the next 40 minutes. Beautiful intro, no rush to it. And that sets up the whole album: four years after Gemini Rights, Steve Lacy came back with something you have to actually sit inside, not something built to jump out of your phone.

The standout tracks on Oh yeah?

Let's start with the stuff we couldn't stop replaying. "Pure Colour" is the one we'd melt our speakers to. Erykah Badu floats in and the back end goes full intergalactic. "The Feeling" already had us before the album dropped, but hearing that chorus land in full, "am I your baby," with the choir coming in behind him? That's the moment. Soothing summer song, easy to love. "Nothing" is where his melodies really show off. "Show You Me" is basically "Spies" by Coldplay and we're completely fine with that. "Lovesexdrugbomb" snuck up on us as a favorite, and "Is It Cool?" has a weirdly Mac Miller-ish thing going on in the production.

"Nice Shoes / In Your World": the nine-minute centerpiece

Then there's "Nice Shoes / In Your World." He stretched it to nine minutes and it might be the most impressive thing he's ever made. The second half is so smooth, guitars and keys layered under a wash of synths that goes properly Blonde-esque, and the synths around the 4:30 mark gave us straight "Nights" flashbacks. Then a drum and bass beat kicks in near the end and flips the whole thing over. There's one little blip in there that sounds exactly like the alarm behind the counter at McDonald's, and we're 90% sure he dropped it in for the bit. Love that.

Let's talk about those Steve Lacy lyrics

Now, the lyrics. Yeah. Some of these lines are baffling in a way that makes you laugh out loud. "I'm a big baby suckin' on big titties, karma's a bitch and I bet she's pretty." The whole coochie-stuck-in-my-teeth bar. "Blah blah blah, shut the fuck up." On paper it's a lot. But this has always been Steve. He'll say some ridiculous thing and half the time the charm carries it clean over the line. People forget Gemini Rights had "you had a heavy dick, a cannon." It's the Tyler thing, nobody else is saying it, and that's kind of the point. Don't silence a diva.

Did Steve Lacy make an anti-TikTok album?

There's a theory going around that we buy: he made this album specifically to not feed TikTok. No obvious clip-bait single, nothing engineered to go viral, just him playing guitar in the garage. He basically said as much on Popcast. After watching "Bad Habit" get chewed up by an audience he didn't ask for, an album with no easy handles on it feels like a choice, not an accident.

Oh yeah? vs. Gemini Rights

So where does it sit next to Gemini Rights? Honestly, GR is probably still his peak, and if you go in chasing that summer-funk high you'll come out cold, because this is the winter-breakup version of Steve. More experimental, a little more same-y depending on your mood, less variation in the vocals. But he's young, he's clearly bored of the obvious move, and this is the kind of record that grows. First spin underwhelmed a lot of people. Second and third spins are quietly turning them around.

Our verdict on Oh yeah?

The verdict, for now: grower, not grabber. A sleeper. It's the classic Steve Lacy move, a 5-or-6 album with a couple of genuine 10s littered through it. We're not slapping a number on it two days in. But a question mark on the cover that actually feels earned instead of cute tells you everything. He made a record that doubts itself out loud, and we're better off for it.

More once it settles.

If you wanna sit with more songs in this lane, we put together a playlist of stuff that scratches the same itch as Steve. It's called anti pop summer mix. Have a listen.