Music’s biggest names have been killing it lately — and not just in the sales department.
In 2015, Kendrick Lamar took on an entire nation’s racial politics with To Pimp a Butterfly. Earlier this year, David Bowie plunged into the abyss and took us with him for the ride on Blackstar. And of course, with Lemonade, Beyoncé seamlessly wove together a personal narrative with the experiences of marginalized women everywhere.
These albums resonated with listeners not just because of their musicality, but because at the core of all of them was a foray into a key element of humanity.
Simply put, they suceeded because listeners could fully buy into their messages on a personal and external level.
This moves us onto Drake, whose release of Views on Friday was hyped up just as much, if not more so, than the aforementioned albums.
It shouldn’t have been.
After the extremely promising and robust If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, the Toronto singer and rapper has followed up with a project that exudes mediocrity. Almost every song feels like one that’s been heard before — either from Drake or someone else — and while the overall effort isn’t bad, it’s one that is certainly disappointing.
It’s disappointing because listeners were promised an album that would examine the underbelly of Toronto — The Six — from a retrospective, aerial view as the album cover suggests. Instead, we received Drake, some of Drake’s friends, Drake’s exes and finally some more Drake. Thematically, this record makes one question whether the artist believes he derives meaning from his city, or his city derives meaning from him.
The narcissistic content matter is not the only part of Views that falls short of expectations.
Containing 20 nearly indistinguishable tracks, Drake invites the listener on a long trudge through largely repetitive songs with a few brief respites offered on gems like “Weston Road Flows,” “Controla” and “Too Good” — the last of which features Rihanna.
The production is stellar as always, but the music overall lacks potency. It inspires personal detachment rather than investment through introspection or “extrospection.” The music on this album isn’t calm because its lack evocativeness — it’s numbing.
It’s also worth mentioning, though, that there isn’t a bad track on this album, and there are even some great ones. The problem is there is nowhere near enough quality to back up the quantity. Listeners will probably be better off selecting their favorite eight to 10 tracks and deleting the rest to create a more refined experience.
What hurts the most about Views, though, is not the project itself, but what it represents. When a meme of photoshopping an artist onto random buildings is a bigger factor in the driving sales of one of 2016’s biggest albums than the music itself, it paints an overwhelmingly negative picture of the music as a whole. This is an industry Drake is largely complicit in, as he was content with being the subject of everyone’s memes.
Equally discouraging is how poorly Drake allocated his immense musical resources. When you have access to the best producers, musicians and emcees in the game and choose to deploy them in a safe, commercial and overly unambitious way — it just feels like a waste. To go back to Kendrick Lamar and Beyoncé, they had the same privileges and took full advantage of them, creating projects with artistry that will stun and stimulate listeners for decades to come.
Why Drake didn’t do the same, only he knows. IYRTITL proved he had the potential to make ambitious art, but instead he leapt for the warm, safe embrace of mediocrity in Views.
Drake, if you’re reading this by some chance, it’s not too late. You can rebound on your next project. But if you don’t, well, know that a lasting legacy is something even platinum sales can’t buy.
Rating: 3.2/5
