Review: Drake- Views

I've been sitting with this for a week, and I'm still confused. Drake has never been one of my favorite artists, but I've been following his rise, and he's got a few tracks I can admit to enjoying. People always point to his introspective tracks as a strong point, but to me those are very few and far between. Hooking up with a girl, leaving her to have sex with countless other women, and then moaning about it years later when you come back and (gasp) she moved on without you does not count as introspection; it's being a whiny douche. Drake seems to mix those types of tracks, really unflattering and boring boasting tracks about how he's "hard" (apparently Snow was ahead of his time if Drake is considered hard now. Snow could've been a massive hit), and genuine moments of introspection throughout his projects, with frustrating results. I really disliked his last project, If You're Reading This, It's Too Late, but even that had 'You & the 6', which I thought was a very interesting dive into Drake's personal life besides money and women. All in all, if you took all of the Drake tracks I like, you might be able to make an album out of it. Then there's Views.

Views seems to take all of my least favorite elements of Drake's persona, ramps them up to 11, discards with any introspection, or even pop appeal or lively (or lively for Drake) bangers, and stretches it out for nearly an hour and a half. It felt like there was very little rapping on this album, the the singing that dominates is so one note, so monotonous and lazy that it fails to make up for it. Production is decent to good (actually the only worthwhile thing to listen to), though the hazy, downtempo beats hardly sync up with Drake's obnoxious bragging (Chaining Tatum? Dude,No). I feel like arrogant brag raps can't be backed by this kind of codeine drenched sound. Production has a little bit of variation fro previous albums with some dancehall vibes (again, Snow should make a comeback), but overall, this just sounds like 'Marvin's Room: The Album' with little bits of If You're Reading This, It's Too Late sprinkled throughout.

If you're a fan of Drake's more R&B balladry, you might enjoy this a little bit, though if you're more in line with his rap stuff, this will not be enough to hold you (his previous outings were hardly bar fests, but still). I actually prefer If You're Reading This, It's Too Late to this, and this may be my least favorite Drake project. It's just too slow, bloated, consistently boring, and delivers really nothing but failed hype. The build up for this album was years in the making, and once the album drops, you're like, 'Really?'. To Drake Stans, this album will either be a classic, or it'll be devastating. To me, it's auditory Ambien.

Out of a total of five stars, I give this:

What did you think of Views? Check back in later for more reviews. Planning on tackling Death Grips' latest, Bottomless Pit.




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