"Views" (2016) – Drake

I’ve always liked Drake. Sure, he’s advertised as a pop rapper and he’s as mainstream as they come, but he’s different from all the rest. Sort of. Birthed from Kanye’s revolutionary and prophetic "808s and Heartbreaks," he’s made a career out of pouring his heart out into his songs. And while he has an image of hardness to keep up, he’s almost always sincere. Singing isn’t typical of a rapper, but he created his own style and it’s worked pretty well up to this point. But my problem with this record is not whether the singing is sincere or genuine enough; it’s just that’s there’s simply too much of it here. And more often than not, it’s chock-full of things we’re all too familiar with. And there’s one thing that’s certain: The hype was not warranted.

That may be another factor holding this record back, and that’s problematic for Drake, considering it has little to do with the music. Ever since he teased it in 2014, there’s been a lot of promotion and anticipation for this record. Two mixtapes and a diss track’s worth, in fact. “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” was a good record, not a great one, but as a placeholder for "Views," it was a pleasant surprise. Then came the highly-publicized beef with Meek Mill, a petty but entertaining affair that certainly worked in Drake’s favor. On top of all of this, he and Future fooled around on the fun, but pointless, side-project, “What a Time to Be Alive,” a mixtape filled with braggadocios and almost literally nothing else. If you were to count it along with the rest of Drake’s output, it would likely be at the bottom. Yet, it didn’t even have to be good; it was just a bonus for a hell of year that he had. And in between those projects, “Hotline Bling” came and blew up the Internet with its endless barrage of memes, returning him to the top of the charts. But even more than that, it signaled that Drake wasn’t finished with the style that made him so lovable in the first place. Kendrick may have had the best album of 2015, but Drake sure as heck owned the year.

So why spew over all this extra context? Because it did nothing but hurt the album. It also didn’t help when Drake said he would switch up his style completely and that it would be his best album. Production aside, haven’t we heard all of this before? What we have here is nothing that “Take Care”or “Thank Me Later” didn’t accomplish, and nowhere near as gracefully as the former. Ironically enough, I was a little concerned with the image Drake was fabricating for himself. Both mixtapes (one more than the other) had begun to wear away at the Drake that we knew, and that was a rapper/singer who was whole-hearted, profound, distinct, and plenty else. He loved to remember as much as he loved to forget. He loved his ex’s as much as he almost wished he’d never met them. And judging from his newer persona on those mixtapes, those previous attributes were almost rendered to moot when he bragged about money, women, and high-priced items. You know… typical superficial topics reliably covered by just about every rapper today and yesterday. And yet, “Views” goes back on his timeline quite far, an album that would’ve been more suited for a release anywhere between “So Far Gone” and “Nothing Was The Same.” And if this reverse aging isn’t off-putting enough, there are hardly any bangers you’d find on any previous Drake release. The word “downer” and Drake are almost synonymous, but at least on “Take Care,” there were livelier songs like “Headlines,” “Make Me Proud,” “HYFR,” and a couple of others, most of them on the first half of the record, letting his feelings take control of the second half. Another great thing about that record is that it plays out like a night on the town, optimistic at first and full of life, but emotionally draining the more drinks you down. This record is nothing but a dull, melancholy exercise, with songs like “Hype” and “Pop Style” interrupting the flow of songs. They strike as oddities in the context of the record rather than pleasant surprises. Ironically enough, I now long for the aimless yet energetic braggadocio so ubiquitous throughout “What a Time To Be Alive.” In short, a healthy balance of braggadocio and introspective heartbreak tales work best for him. This is why “Take Care” and “Nothing Was The Same” were exceptionally great albums, because they balanced the two quite well.

What’s even more frustrating here is that there’s no song(s) to blame for this album’s disappointment. One after another, there are no apparent problems with any of the tracks. I enjoy each as much as the next. Take one song out of the album and it’s great, but place it back in its element, and it’s underwhelming in the end. It’s seriously in need of more “One Dance’s” and “Grammy’s”. In the end, it wanders around fruitlessly and never finds an apex or satisfying groove that it’s comfortable with. No matter what reputation the album may garner in the future, it’s definitely not his masterpiece. It may define him personally, but his ode to his city falls flat. It’s a shame too, as I’ve always looked forward to where Drake slows the record down to pause for his feelings. Now I find myself looking for a spark somewhere in this stagnant collection of songs. It’s nowhere near as mediocre as the grade suggests, but I expected more from one of hip hop’s most reliable artists.Maybe we judged the beef too fast, because somewhere, Meek Mill is having the last laugh. B

(Key Tracks: "Hotline Bling," "One Dance," "Western Road Flows")