When you are good at something and tend to perform well at that something, people put you on a high pedestal. When you are on that high pedestal you are expected to only produce greatness with very minimal room for error. The fact that people have such high expectations for you is an honor but at the same time it puts a lot of pressure on you.
To the average person if they produce average work it probably doesn’t really get any negative feedback and if it is somewhat above average it will probably get praise. However, if people are used to you producing A+ work and you produce a B- it is likely that you will get scrutinized. This is what I feel happened to Bryson Tiller.
For those who might not know, Bryson Tiller is an R&B artist, who rose to fame for his critically acclaimed debut album, “Trapsoul”. This man was a new artist, fresh on the music scene, and he created an album that is considered a cult classic, that has several songs that are still played years later. And it was his first ever album. Seeing that in the music industry is rare, especially nowadays. So, you could imagine the immense pressure on Tiller on how he would follow up.
His second album, “True to Self” wasn’t a disappointment but it certainly didn’t measure up to “Trapsoul”. Even though the album went No. 1 on the Billboard 100, Tiller still felt like he didn’t bring his A game, or should I say A+ game, with the album. The pressure of creating another masterpiece and the pressures of his personal life got to him and, as a result, affected his craft. The fans noticed and he ended up taking a 3 year hiatus from music, only doing features and not releasing any solo projects. That is until this past Friday. Tiller released his highly anticipated third album, “Anniversary”.
Tiller said in interviews that he really cared about this album and took his time to perfectly craft it. Unfortunately, many fans were disappointed in the outcome. It wasn’t a bad album, but since Tiller is placed on such a high pedestal by his fans, it was a bad album for him. I don’t know if the pressure got to him even more this time around and caused him to fall short, or if he simply doesn’t have the same passion for music as he did when creating “Trapsoul”.
Regardless, I feel like fans should ease up on the criticism. It’s hard to be placed on such a high pedestal, especially when you didn’t ask for it in the beginning. Tiller has had a lot of pressure on him over the last years. So much it has caused him to want to drop music altogether. So the moral of the story is, try not to hold people up to such high standards. People are human and sometimes an A+ person will produce B work.