The album was teased after the release of Jaden's music video for "Fallen" back in December 2016. The album title is a reference to his full name Jaden Christopher Syre Smith. In an interview with Complex about the album title, Jaden said that:
Syre really just came to me one day. I didn’t know what I was going to call the album, but one day it really really came. I don’t know what happened. It was like a switch—from one second to another, my whole life switched. I realized that Syre was the answer, what I had to move forward with. People love to just talk about me by name and say, "Oh, Jaden Smith this, Jaden Smith that." It’s time for a new awakening and a new consciousness. Anybody who thinks they know me, this album is something completely different from what they think.
Promotion
Following the announcement of the release date for Syre, Smith posted twelve visuals, including seven videos, to Instagram, forming the project's artwork when the thumbnails are viewed together. The center post is a video captioned, "The Syre Movie Trailer. Score By Ricky Eat Acid," and the other six videos are song teasers that conclude with title cards featuring the track names.
Singles
"Fallen" was released as the lead single from the album on December 5, 2016. "Batman" and "Watch Me" were released as the album's second and third single respectively on July 14, 2017. "Falcon" was released as the album's fourth single on November 16, 2017. The song features a guest appearance from American singer Raury. "Icon" was released as the album's fifth single on November 17, 2017, along with an accompanied music video.
Composition
Talking to Vanity Fair, Smith said that Syre was inspired by Kanye West's The Life of Pablo and Frank Ocean's Blonde. Syre has been compared to a musical with multiple characters with the main character Syre being played by Jaden Smith as Syre experiences sadness, anger and regret following the breakdown of a relationship with references to Adam and Eve and the myth of Icarus. The album, which is over an hour long, chronicles the coming of age of the character, Syre. Speaking on the character, Smith said “It's really just become a legacy of this guy, this kid, who chases the sunset – and then one day, it chases him back and he can't get away – it really is the story of me coming to be a young adult, and it wasn't easy at all." The story also has mentions of Smith's personal life with a song dedicated to his ex-girlfriend, Sarah Snyder and his failure to dissociate with his father's fame. The album is "full of soaring harmonies and dark, moody production" and combines "folk, metal, ‘70s rock, Christian pop and Detroit techno" with NME comparing it to putting a Spotify playlist on shuffle.
Critical reception
Syre received generally positive reviews from music critics upon its release, At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 69, based on six reviews. A. Harmony of Exclaim! said, "Genre-fluid and dense, Jaden Smith's Roc Nation debut is a lot to process. SYRE changes shape in such a way that it plays like two distinct albums; it's a sonic playground, and Smith bounces from toy to toy, flexing his artistic muscle throughout." Kyle Eustice of HipHopDX praised the album's creativity, production, and commended Jaden's stylistic progressions and improvement from his past releases. In contrast, Pitchfork's Kevin Lozano criticized the rapping and lyrics, writing, "Full of chaotic beats and cringe-worthy lyrics, the debut studio album from Jaden Smith is a sophistic, paranoid fantasy that mixes new-age thinking with apocalyptic rhetoric."
