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Review of Drake’s New Album Views

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at San Francisco chapter.

@champagnepapi AKA Drake is one of the world’s biggest artists. Drake is a multi-faceted entertainer. His talents include: rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and actor – just to name a few. His popularity has exploded during the length of his career, even when hundreds of memes poking fun at him took over the Internet. But, that didn’t break him down because he humbly started to participate in his own virtual roast. You gotta’ respect a man with a good sense of humour. Am I right?

If you’re a crazy Drake fan like me, you know his new album Views was released this past Friday. He cleverly launched his summer tour, Summer Sixteen the same day. Not only did his tickets sell out within minutes (trust me – I was counting down the seconds only to be disappointed to see $300 nose-bleeds seats…uh, no, thank you), new songs from his album were blasting through practically every radio station.

 

The much anticipated Views album featured some of the most popular songs of the year so far, such as Hotline Bling and One Dance. However, with much anticipation came a small amount of disappointment. Views, does not entirely lack Drake’s sensitive “I miss my ex” side, but it definitely lacks quality beats and bangers. His latest mix tape If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late met a happy equilibrium of the two, much like his previous work. Unfortunately, this album lacked that balanced. Even his collaborations with Rihanna and Future were not up to par with his previous collaborations with the artists. It seems like Drake either rushed this album, or wanted his music to be more straightforward, and well, less Drake.

In my opinion, the best songs on his album have already been released. I love the Caribbean vibe of One Dance.  I also suggest a few other pleasers on the album: Fire and Desire, With You (feat. PartyNextDoor) 9, and Hype are a few of my favs. My least favorites are: Grammy (feat. Future), Too Good (feat. Rihanna), Faithful, and Controlla.

Even though I am disappointed…and bitter because I couldn’t get tickets to see him this Summer… I still think he is paving out his own genre of music. He has always been about the music – the art – and I respect that. All in all, Drake is talented and we can’t deny it, even with this subpar album.