Album is overrated; sonically and production wise, it's good and the features were on point. Even the visual album was good. Overall, it's lacking and lyrically the content isn't as in depth nor detailed as some of her former work, but that's generally expected in pop music as singers generally perform music written by others and I think she wrote this album, didnt stay long enough for credits. It seemed like yet another marketing ploy employed by Beyonce and Jay to sell albums, which it succeeded in doing with ease.
And me saying something is trash doesn't denote my understanding of what a "good" album is, especially since the word "good" is largely objective and based on criteria the listener uses; the standards I might have for what a "good" album can be different than your standards and that's one of the beautiful things about music. It's overrated to me, simple.
If you know music is subjective then saying something is trash because you find it overrated is contradicting, it's something someone who didn't understand that concept would say. Especially after saying sonically it was good, when music is a sonic experience. But whatever.
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So I listened to it a few times, 2 in the morning and 3 at night. Mostly because Drake has said many times, "He makes music for the night time" and morning because your brains is fresh from sleep.
Overall he's still super moody, if you think men can't menstrate, then this album will freak your mind. Not to say it's terrible or bad but hearing someone whine in your ears and then try to talk sexually to you for over an hour multiple times...pretty annoying, but the album wasn't bad. On the cover is Drake photoshopped on top of the CN Tower, I've seen it the few times I've been to Toronto it's huge, biggest tower. There's no way they would let someone chill up there during a stormy sky, that's asking for trouble, but paints a picture of Drakes Views.
The stormy sky is his lyrical outlook the whole album, he paints himself as kind of negative most of the album, unless he's reminiscing about old times, hanging with friends or trying to have ***. And as I expected from lyrics on older albums, he's a little salty at the 6, even going as far as to title the second track 9 where he turns the 6 upside down. A perfect example in my opinion of the album cover message, has these minor piano synth whole note chords that feel like dark clouds approaching, with like these glassy almost shimmering minor arpeggio lines to give height to it. The whole chorus is a high pitched sample saying, "nine nine nine not a six". And other tracks like Views where he's remineniscing about when he was coming up in Toronto and how he felt then versus now, "I draw a blank page when I draw a comparison" or lines in other songs like, "My whole city rates me now I'm back inside the Matrix". Which I like, it matches the consistency with other song themes in his discography like "Worst Behavior". He also is still just about his friends and family and not anyone else.
Drake has also got better at singing, not to say he's singing more complex but his voice has matured some and he hits the notes stronger. Also his flow for the most part is still pretty good with the beats, he picks the right phrasing and shows skill against a banging beat. Like on the song Grammy, which was a obvious "What a time to be alive" track he decided to keep for himself, his flow was better than future's which showed that you don't have to ride the beat so closely like future does. Lyrically though Drake is basic, he barely shows any creativity in his lyrics, it's literally like diary entries for the most part that kind of rhyme. He's just so raw with his thoughts, there's no creativity lyrically going on at all for most of the songs, it's just straight forward like he's talking to you. Which is his style I get, but it can make some songs feel Disney, like a musical scene in Mulan or something. I also thought the song Grammy's theme was redundant, Drakes shown and has said he doesn't care about Grammys. Just seems like he's trying to remind people he has one.
Musically this album doesn't really do anything new for Drake, they play it safe for the most part and I'm pretty sure we won't see anything new style wise from Drake in the future. It's split up between Hip-hop, R&B, and this World pop style they're going for. The rap songs have the type of beats that made Drake popular and that people have copied, but lyrically he dumbed down his flow even more compared to past projects but the beats are really good on each rap song. But the beats are so good it doesn't really matter what's being said, like that "I can't feel my face" song by the Weekend, some instrumentals will sound good with anyone on it. The R&B songs are really whiney lyrically but the melodies are decent enough. The instrumentals while scarce and ambient to give Drake more focus in the mix are okay, he doesn't really try to hard vocally I feel. I'm guessing so people will pay attention to the lyrics more than the singing but R&B is known for great singers. The music style is so down tempo that the passionate singing adds more dynamic but the monotone singing by Drake doesn't really add anything so the tracks can seem stale. The Pop style instrumentslly is a mix of World music with like a African pop vibe. Which I actually like, I feel like if Drake could sing better the instrumentals could be utilized better and the duet with Rihanna was Disney channel caliber, but the music was good. I don't know why Hotline Bling was on the album, at this point that just took up space and his fans already probably own the single.
Overall not his best but not awful, has some tracks I could see Drake stans riding for a bit. I don't feel like the theme was focused enough and I feel like he could've taken more chances musically. C+ 7/10