Drake performs in 2017.Ross Gilmore/Getty Images
There's a reason why Drake is a living legend. His eclectic discography has shifted the very ways in which we define and judge albums.
Drake releases studio-quality projects but calls them "mixtapes." Sometimes he calls them "playlists." Whatever it's called, it's always a smash. He tosses out hit songs and record-breaking tracklists with staggering informality.
"What a Time To Be Alive" is one such example. Drake's 2015 collaborative mixtape with Future was famously written and recorded in just six days. Unfortunately, it shows.
These songs don't quite suit him. Drake takes a backseat throughout the 11 songs, on which much of the production and many of the lyrics are undercooked.
The rappers' chemistry just isn't strong enough to sell the concept, and from the perspective of a Drake fan, "What a Time" doesn't have as much replay value as his other albums.
Much like "Scorpion," "Certified Lover Boy" would have benefitted from several tracklist edits.
But unlike "Scorpion," it doesn't have the standout tracks and certified bops to justify its obscene length. The only memorable moments are the cringey ones — the Right Said Fred sample on "Way 2 Sexy," for example, or the entirety of "Girls Want Girls." And don't even get me started on "F*****g Fans."
Put simply, "Certified Lover Boy" is swollen and boring, a watered-down collection of Drake tropes. I listened straight through the album exactly once and never returned.
"Thank Me Later" satisfied both critics and fans at the time of its release. But beyond serving its purpose as a hype-fulfilling studio debut, it falters when compared to many of Drake's subsequent projects (even though "Find Your Love" has remained one of his strongest cuts).
At least no one can accuse Drake of coming out of the gate too strong and never living up to his debut (ahem, The Weeknd).
Drake continues to insist that "More Life" is a "playlist," not an album — perhaps as an attempt to exempt it from lists like this one, since it's so difficult to compare to his other works.
The triumph of "More Life" is its ability to absorb many different sounds and spotlight many different artists. With its rich production and fun list of collaborators, it has plenty of bright spots.
But if Drake's most consistent critique is that his albums are too bloated, too long, and too uneven to make it all worth it, then "More Life" fails spectacularly. It doesn't even feel like a Drake album because it's 80 minutes of other artists showing him up, 80 minutes of genres and styles that only work with him as a feature. It lacks a central genius, as well as many of the quirks that make Drake, well, Drake.
For those who worship Drake as a rapper, rather than a pop star, "If You're Reading This It's Too Late" is the holy grail. It sees him at his most forceful and certainly his most boastful, rapping over minimal beats and industrial sounds for 17 straight songs.
But Drake didn't become Drake because he's a great rapper. I mean, this is a man who actually said, "Got so many chains, I feel like chain-ing Tatum."
Drake can deliver bars, to be sure, but he's at his best when he blends those bars with moody R&B, decadent production, and melodic vocals — when he blends his narcissism with his jealousy, longing, melancholy, and regret, confronting many moods in a way that feels universal.
"If You're Reading This," by contrast, is uncharacteristically and unceasingly paranoid, aggressive, and single-minded. Save for "Know Yourself" and perhaps "Jungle," it lacks that intimate translation of memories and emotions that make people feel connected to Drake the artist, rather than Drake the brand.
I was primed to enjoy "Honestly, Nevermind," partly because its release was announced mere hours in advance. This weakened the risk of New Drake Hype eclipsing the album itself, which several of its predecessors fell victim to.
Secondly, with 14 songs spanning just 52 minutes, this is Drake's shortest album since "What a Time To Be Alive." After the absolute slog of "Certified Lover Boy," the world deserves that.
Indeed, "Honestly, Nevermind" is remarkably cohesive, a focused package of tropical beats and atmospheric production. Especially as a surprise drop, this makes for a fascinating change of pace. There aren't any Drake-isms, quippy lyrics, or unfortunate outliers. This is an album for feral summer nights, dancing and sweating at Lot 45 in Bushwick.
One staff writer at Rolling Stone described this effect as "'More Life' on molly." Another popular tweet compared it to the groovy jellyfish music from "SpongeBob SquarePants." Both are compliments, and both are correct.
"Honestly, Nevermind" is so smooth that it runs the risk of passive vibing. I can easily picture myself on a dance floor, mindlessly head-bobbing, the DJ's setlist blending together. Luckily, highlights like "Sticky" and "Overdrive" serve to pull the listener back into their body. When 21 Savage arrived to deliver closing statements on "Jimmy Cooks," I didn't quite feel ready to leave the club.
Back in 2016, many fans and critics found "Views" underwhelming, largely thanks to the feverish hype that led up to its release.
But in retrospect, it may be the best representation of Drake as we know him now: the eclectic, confident, irritated, unabashedly corny, taste-making icon.
He spends the entire album "reveling in all his absurdist, quippy glory," as The Ringer's Virali Dave wrote — and that's exactly what we love him for.
The 80-minute tracklist has something for everyone. Drake's purist rap fans have "Hype" and "Still Here." His "Marvin's Room" die-hards got a new crying-in-the-club anthem with "Feel No Ways." And all music listeners should be thankful for the album's string of undeniable bops: "Hotline Bling," "One Dance," "Pop Style," and "Controlla." In short, "Views" holds up.
All these years later, it remains Drake's most divisive project. But for all the ways critics claimed that "Views" was a flop, everyone has sure streamed the hell out of it. It spent more than 100 consecutive weeks on the Billboard 200 chart; it's one of the biggest hip-hop albums of all time. Drake's music offers us plenty to argue about, but numbers don't lie.
Much of the criticism of "Scorpion" is based on his inability to refine a tracklist. Obviously, "Scorpion" is more sprawling than cohesive, and there were some songs that he could've left on the cutting floor.
But as Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield notes, "with this guy, way too much is the point."
It would be fair to assume most people don't commit to a front-to-back listen of "Scorpion." At one hour and 30 minutes, it's his longest project to date. But that's just one way to listen to an album — and it's clearly not the way Drake would prefer us to judge his discography.
A lot of music traditionalists would argue that you can't judge an album by cherry-picking its highlights. But Drake doesn't care if you don't replay the full album. He only cares if you love pieces of it.
To that point, you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who doesn't have at least one or two "Scorpion" songs on repeat. The album boasts some of Drake's most likable songs yet, whether it's his genius Mariah Carey homage "Emotionless," his meme-able "In My Feelings," his emo-synth jam "Summer Games," or the ultimate summer bop "Nice For What."
Concluding with "March 14," an open-heart rumination on sudden fatherhood, is the icing on the cake. You're left feeling like you understand Drake better than before, a feat that many of his newer albums lack.
Plus, there's something to be said for a man who has remodeled the system in his own image and broken multiple Beatles records in the process. With "Scorpion," he makes sheer magnitude work in a uniquely Drake-y way.
Only Drake could build a tracklist that has a timelessly seductive love song ("Hold On We're Going Home"), career-defining hype anthems ("Worst Behavior," "Started From the Bottom"), emo slow jams ("Own It," "Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2"), on top of an audacious six-minute intro ("Tuscan Leather") and somehow turn it into his most focused, sonically cohesive album ever.
"Nothing Was The Same" is a true standout in Drake's catalogue because, as Billboard's Andrew Unterberger writes, "the LP in its entirety is stronger than just its highlights in isolation: It's the Drake album with the most consistent vibe throughout, the one where the songs most feel like they're all stemming from the same moment."
"Take Care" is undoubtedly Drake's masterpiece. It sees him step into his role as the High Priest of our generational oversharing: He's processing his memories in real time, collapsing a myriad of modern experiences and complex emotions into his most immersive album yet.
It can be difficult to remember how risky "Take Care" was for Drake at the time — to release such a self-conscious, gothic record when everyone wanted classic rap songs for the radio.
"Making an album this outré demonstrates a perverse sense of confidence, and also ignores the received wisdom about consistency and incremental change," Jon Caramanica wrote for the New York Times in his review.
"'Take Care' isn't a hip-hop album or an R&B album so much as an album of eccentric black pop that takes those genres as starting points, asks what they can do but haven't been doing, then attempts those things," Carmanica continued. "In the future an album like this will be commonplace; today, it's radical."
He was right. "Take Care" was criticized by Drake's peers who said it wasn't "real rap." Now, it's what you'd put in a time capsule for future generations to understand why rap hasn't been the same since 2011.
US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
Markets rebound in early trade amid global rally, buying in ICICI Bank and Reliance
Women in Leadership
Rupee declines 5 paise to 83.43 against US dollar in early trade
Copyright © 2024. Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved.For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service.
Next Story