Drake as an artist is a controversial character in pop music. Despite being unimaginably popular it seems he has as many haters as he does fans. Of course, both sides have their points but neither really looks at his discography from an unbiased perspective. In this deep dive, I hope to really discover what makes people love and hate Drake by going through each of his solo studio albums.
- “Honestly, Nevermind”
“Honestly, Nevermind” is a true unadulterated critical flop of an album. It has no significant story, no discernable through line other than Drake is too old to be acting like this and Drake is not great at house music. The five-minute slog of “Texts Go Green” that feels like 10 due to its sameness is the exact problem with the album. There are very few ideas on display with “Honestly Nevermind”, or at least any that Drake thought up. “Jimmy Cooks” comes in at the end as the only real rap song of the album hoping to save some goodwill with the public and doing alright with what it has but it is confusing, to say the least, that Drake could have made an album that was more like it but he decided to instead release the same song in different formats 13 ways.
Rating: 3/10
- Views
“Views” is far too long in the quantity of songs and their length, even for Drake. Of course, this means that some things stick to the wall, but many of Drake’s throws just slide straight to the ground of mediocrity. It begins with “Keep The Family Close” which, one song in, already tests the patience of the listener. “Feel No Ways” hits early enough in the album to provide some comfort before the next drought of forgotten songs. The album just reads as a cash grab and it’s hard to listen to something that has so little respect for the listener’s time, especially when he could really just make a shorter album. Would anyone miss “Redemption”? Or “Still Here”? There are real good songs on the album like the earworm “Child’s Play” and the perhaps overly mocked “Hotline Bling,” but nothing that can justify an 80-minute listen time.
Rating: 4/10
- For All The Dogs
Drake’s newest album was actually already reviewed by myself on the online Colt Chronicle website if you’d like to check out a deeper analysis but to be brief the album actually shares a lot of similarities with Views in its negatives, far too long and bloated, songs with no purpose, a lot of features that either hold the song up or barely do anything. It’s only above “Views” because it has more good songs that break through the rest really. Some highlights include the fast-paced but perhaps a little overbearing “Daylight” and the strongly lyric-laden “8 AM in Charlotte.”
Rating: 5/10
- Nothing Was The Same
“NWTS” is really a middle-of-the-road album. It has quite a few good songs but none over the top, it has some misses but nothing atrocious. It is able to stick the landing but maybe a big fail is better than a small win. “NWTS” starts off this okayness with “Tuscan Leather” which admittedly is a fairly good song but again fairly is the keyword there. “Started From The Bottom” is just poor as a whole and honestly its inclusion brings the album down a peg for me every time I listen to it. “Hold On We’re Going Home” is the real star of the show here with a beautiful soaring vibe helped by Majid Jordan’s feature on the track. The rest though brings nothing to mind for me really. It’s interesting that at least more polarizing albums can be talked about but this just falls by the wayside.
Rating: 5/10
- Scorpion
“Scorpion” could be considered another bloated album by Drake but it does it in the best way possible. He provides a suite of songs that look to the past and the future of his work. “Sandra’s Rose” is an almost perfect song that devotes its entire runtime to wordplay while “God’s Plan” may be overplayed but it is still a classic 2010’s bop that provided the right amount of Drake absurdity without overdoing it. There are still some misses on the album of course that we see in the grating “Nonstop” but unlike some of the albums before this, they are not the huge majority of the album. Drake for once knew when to stop.
Rating: 6/10
- Thank Me Later
Drake’s debut studio album has some of his best highlights and also some serious fumbles in terms of quality. On first listen the first thing that pops up is the album taking many cues from Kanye West’s “808s and Heartbreak” even including a song produced by the rapper which uncoincidentally is one of the better on the album in “Show Me a Good Time”. The rest of the album is fairly entrenched in its era with “Shut it Down” showing Drake at his most unintentionally creepy while “Fancy” is a great rollicking club hit that still holds water. “Thank Me Later” set the tone for Drake in both the best and the worst ways
Rating: 7/10
- Certified Loverboy
Originally when “CLB” was released I was one of its many haters. I didn’t really go through the album as a whole and only saw its negatives. Looking back on it though it really is one of Drake’s strongest projects. The intro “Champagne Poetry” brings the listener up to speed on Drake’s personal life then he quickly moves into some cringe territory with “Girls Want Girls” but is successfully able to move away from that with songs like “Fair Trade” that show Drake’s well-known hook making chops or the feature-heavy “You Only Live Twice” that provides one of Drake’s best verses on the album. Collectively the album represents a sort of maturing for Drake near the end which maybe does not follow through to the rest of his career.
Rating: 7.5/10
- Take Care
“Take Care” is a serious improvement from Drake’s debut. It contains some of his best straight rap songs and many of his strongest verses, such as his classic bars on the Rick Ross-supported “Lord Knows” about how confidence is key in the music industry. Of course, it still has many of the cringe-worthy lines that permeate throughout Drake’s career in songs like “I like when your hair’s still wet cause you just took a shower” off the overly slimy “Make Me Proud”. The album overall has the tone of a 20-something guy with probably too much money and not enough sense, although that’s probably what he was going for. It is perhaps to the benefit of the album that Drake is so honest in his intentions and his lifestyle. This album was before his “Mob Ties” era so we are at least able to avoid that eye-rolling ordeal. The album isn’t perfect but to me, it is Drake’s best
Rating: 8.5/10
