Why?

Yoni Wolf of cLOUDDEAD had already debuted solo as Why? with the cassette Part Time People Cage or Part Time Key? (1999), a sardonic, sloppy, disorganized rap collage that blends the dazed jester of Half Full/ Empty Universe and Comments on Fred Ramdal's Whale Cocks, the sound effects of Mr Lovliest Cat Esquire, the found and manipulated voices of Edison in Formaldihyde, the musique concrete of Ode to the Modern Squirrel, the muffled garage-rock Blood Puddle on Wallstreet and much more. Wolf recorded that tape in the vein of San Francisco's freak acts that bent genres and derided stereotypes over the decades. Why? rose to prominence with the album Oaklandazulasylum (Anticon, 2003), on which the studio trickery is more restrained and Wolf impersonates the singer-songwriter and guitarist (Early Whitney, the surreal raga-rock of Seventeen), the spaced-out singer (Cold Lunch, Dirty Glass) and the jester of silly jingles (Afterschool America). Most songs change completely before they end. Witness how A Little Titanic drowsy singsong morphs into a robotic cantilena, or how Bad Entropy transitions from syncopated rapping to shoegazing lament. Overall, a lot more singing than rapping. The six-song EP Early Whitney (2003) capitalizes on the song from the album.

Why? then became a trio, fronted by Wolf, and released the eight-song EP Sanddollars (may 2005), moving further away from hip-hop and firmly into indie-pop territory, notably the catchy Miss Ohio's Nameless and the almost clownish Sanddollars. Elephant Eyelash (2005) is a parade of quirky arrangements and unorthodox song structures. Only Crushed Bones crosses over into hip-hop, the rest being poignant indie-pop confessions. Gemini still has traces of rapping but drowning in country anguish and piano passion. Rubber Traits, possibly the peak of his career, is emblematic of the core of the album: a constant genre-defying adulteration of roots and psychedelic rock that attains a higher degree of romantic pathos. The hip-hop background helps Wolf to destabilize the rhythm of the heartfelt Yo Yo Bye Bye, to sabotage the lightweight marching fanfare Fall Saddles, and to set in motion the percussive absurdity of Waterfalls. The rapping experience shows up indirectly in the ease with which he delivers rigmaroles like Speech Bubbles. The production experience helps pen the exotic arrangement of The Hoofs. And there's even an imitation of the Rolling Stones, Whispers Into The Other. There is variety in multiple forms. It's like a creative version of Guided By Voices.

The vastly inferior Alopecia (Anticon, 2008), crafted with bombastic arrangements and leveraging Wolf's affable talk-singing, favors tragic overtones (the depressed pseudo-rap Good Friday and The Fall of Mr Fifths) Wolf also shifted from abstract lyrics to brutally vivid and earnest lyrics. The songs are generally more streamlined, yielding more infectious moments like the catchy quasi-reggae These Few Presidents and the They Might Be Giants-esque Fatalist Palmistry, but also indulging in the pop-hop ballad The Vowels Pt 2 and in the aimless lament of Simeon's Dilemma. The eccentric approach still yields the psychedelic and gamelan-like A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under.

Eskimo Snow (2009) collected leftovers from the same sessions of Alopecia. The material is clearly second-rate, with most songs evoking the "middle of the road" style of the 1970s or a more brooding and Ben Folds Pianos dominate from the Nick Cave-esque to These Hands to the Rufus Wainwright-ian The Blackest Purse, except the delicate fingerpicking for the melancholy One Rose and the xylophone for the Dylan-ian Berkeley by Hearseback.

Doseone and Why? formed Greenthink in Oakland in 1998 that debuted with Blindfold (self-released, 1999 - A Purple 100, 2002).

Why? returned with the EP Sod in the Seed (2012), containing the ska-tinged talk-singing shuffle Sod in the Seed, the stately The Plan and the aberrant For Someone. The album Mumps Etc (2012) contains the slightly original Strawberries and a revamped version of Sod in the Seed, but mostly a lot of disposable material.

Testarossa (2016) was a collaboration with Chicago rapper David "Serengeti" Cohn.

Wolf's literate and abstract lyrics reached a cryptic zenith on Moh Lhean (2017), an album with much denser and louder arrangements (see the almost symphonic hymn The Barely Blur) and in general with more creative songs like This Ole King (deviant folk-rock) and Proactive Evolution (convoluted beat and children's choir).

Aokohio (2019) is an odd collection of 19 pieces, mostly very short, mostly lo-fi, as if unfinished and not fully produced. Some are simple sketches, some are half-baked poppy tunes (best Stained Glass Slipper). The psychedelic ode Peel Free could have been interesting. There is even a straightforward lullaby, Bloom Wither Bloom.

The Well I Fell Into (2024) is an album of mainstream pop and rock, aiming for grandiose melodies that are more suitable for arena rock, evoking a middle-aged singer-songwriter of the 1970s recycling his old hits.