If 17 was a storm of manic sound and shapeshifting trauma, Revenge was the forecast. The project, released after his five-month jail stint, is a compilation of earlier XXXTENTACION releases. Checking in at just 15 minutes, it's a brief yet nearly comprehensive stylistic roadmap for the troubled teen growing into his talent. Here, you can see embryonic versions of the songs that would help make him one of the most iconic artists of his generation. From the very beginning, X established himself as an artist who mixed and matched aesthetics to align with his nearest corresponding feelings. "I Don't Wanna Do This Anymore" is a ghostly R&B fit for an evaporating romance. Grafted onto a bed of phantom vocals, X's lithe tenor evokes reluctant longing and simmering sorrow. "RIP Roach" sees X and his comrade Ski Mask the Slump God dive into screamo; it's a friend's memorial, but with its blown-out bass and X's guttural shouts, it sounds like a riot, or a séance for an unwieldy spirit. Those are elements cultivated from a life of rap and punk fandom. X threaded them with a lo-fi ambience that gave it all an unpolished surface—a fitting match for a rush of jagged sensations and raw, unprocessed emotions. And so then, the Diplo-produced "Looking for a Star" is an about-face, as X bathes in Auto-Tune for a luminous EDM single about romantic disappointment. It's a predecessor to a chart-topping song like "SAD!", which would be released a year later. There are flashes of cross-genre virtuosity, but the song that propelled X into the spotlight embodies the raucous, lo-fi soul that became his signature. The track turns a warped Mala sample into a canvas for X's frenzied cadences, propulsive shouts and punk nihilism, a hellish combination at the intersection of teen angst and impulse. Titled "Look At Me!", it's both a directive and an emblem for an artist who was already impossible to turn away from.