Ngl this album challenged a lot of my preconceived notions. I went into it wanting a more mature & concise rap album. What we got was definitely not that and I was hella disappointed on first listen but 3 or 4 listens in I’m ngl I really fw this s***. I’ve always complained about the longer “bloated” or “unfocused” Drake albums but I realize now that I was never really fairly assessing them.

Truth is we put a lot of expectations of what Drake albums should sound like based on what OTHER artists that came before him do. A lot of us are Hov and Ye stans (I know I was and they will probably forever be top 2 for me) a lot of Kendrick stans tap in with Drake albums too and he’s kind of the standard barer for what a great rap album “should” sound like. Just because Drake doesn’t structure his albums like they do doesn’t mean it’s wrong. There is no right or wrong way to make music.

Just because we miss Jay and Kanye and their music doesn’t mean we should expect Drake to fill that void. Whether an album is a concise 14 tracks and has a consistent sound or is 23 tracks with different sounds doesn’t really make a difference. What does matter is if the music is entertaining and you connect with it. There are no rules to this, music is art and people need to stop projecting.

Also Drake is a different artist than all of them, he covers so much ground in terms of his different sounds so it makes sense that his albums are longer, we also in the streaming era so shorter songs/longer albums is kinda the reality of this s***.

Anyway just some thoughts, album hard as brix, 8/10 for me

Love to hear this bro

This clicked on my first listen. It’s his freshest album of the decade.

This is arguably his greatest body of work and its blowing my mind

Yup. Theres so much to unpack, idk how people can say its trash after a day

The boy who they tryna boycott

Other artists like the ones you mentioned just know how to structure and sequence an album better, have the disciple to cut certain songs to make the album better and more concise and don’t need to over bloat their s*** because they actually care about quality.

For real. It’s unlike anything he’s ever done if I’m being honest. I’d call a spade a spade too if I didn’t like the album like I did CLB.

I don’t mind the 23 tracks. Nothing sounds the same and every track is unique

I’ve really grown to appreciate Drake’s approach and how it differs from other goats

As reckless as Ye was he always wanted validation from critics, grammys etc. Don’t get me wrong his albums are masterpieces but I kinda get the “critic bait” perspective (even though I don’t necessarily agree with it)

Drake obviously doesn’t give af about that. He’ll use a Grammy as a door stop. He’s a master provacator and his music is left up to interpretation

That’s what I mean though

Different doesn’t mean better it’s just another approach

If you prefer concise albums that’s cool but I don’t think that should necessarily be a standard for every artist

I didn’t say it was different. I said better. Even if an album is long it’s okay if the songs on it warrant it being that long and the track listing is good. If not you run the risk of the album being unnecessarily bloated which decreases the quality of it and makes it a chore for people other than his Stan’s to get through.

Dude been treating his albums like a playlist for years now. To be fair a lot of artists nowadays are though it’s sad to see. Not a lot of people care about the art of being a good album anymore.

I used to prescribe to the ideology of “the art of a good album” but I just realized that’s just how my favorite artist do it and I was projecting my desire for more albums from them onto artist who do things differently

Ngl this sounds like copium

Or that’s how actual artists who care about making good albums do it and you let other artists slide with mediocrity.

Y’all can like this niggas music and admit he bloats the s*** out of his albums lowering the overall quality of it. It really ain’t mutually exclusive.

The reality is we can say Drake albums are bloated all day, but I guarantee the songs a hip hop purist would cut are different than what his new school hip hop fans would cut, or his pop fans would cut, or his r&b fans would cut.

Lol it sounds like op has more similar taste to you but is just leaving room to appreciate a different perspective cuz it’s all subjective

Exactly

Every song is essential to feed each fan base

People just be selfish and only care about their part of the fanbase lol

🎯

Ah the classic “it’s all subjective” cop out answer. What’s the point even discussing anything about music then? You gon tell me to me face that if someone said Lil Vicky a better rapper and music artist than Drake or Kendrick that it’s just subjective? Lol

For a long time, I expected Drake to not release trash that he put zero effort into while simultaneously expecting it to do numbers based on name recognition alone

But then one day I realized that it was an unreasonable goal for him to make consistently good music and accepted that his albums were going to be a grab bag of random s*** that ranged from good to terrible.

Anyway, I hope you're all having a good day

Subjective my ass. Different fan bases my ass.

I’m a fan of all genres of music as long as it’s sonically good.

Damn near half the album is not sonically good. That’s it. And I’m probably one of his biggest stans that has defended him since first discovering him.

I normally don’t side with the “too long, bloated, stop catering to other fans” group but they have a point with this specific album. You want to make playlist long albums? At least make sure the music is all good.

More life, good
Scorpion, good
Clb, good

This album? Meh

Boring flows, boring production or just plain wack music (idgaf??? 7969 Santa????)

If you like those albums you'll grow to like this too but yea those are way more melodic than fatd

Lol if someone said Lil Vicky makes music they prefer over Drake and Kendrick I wouldn’t care. Your example is talking about the ability of rapping and I’m talking about music. We can objectively take note of what rappers show the most skillset, but that doesn’t equate to best music. For example, to me, Lupe and Hov are two of the best wordsmiths ever. I still think Kanye makes better music.

I don’t understand why the response to music being subjective is it’s somehow a cop out when 1. No one disagrees that it’s subjective 2. Why is this worth an argument? What is to be gained and what is being lost? We can still discuss music. You can still tell me what you prefer and why and what doesn’t clique. Neither me or op has tried to change your mind lol we’re just sharing a different perspective