Aubrey Graham, or, “Drake” is a very important musical artist in the course of 2010’s music, but why? He didn’t start any of the trends of the era; he really piggybacked off most of them. His writing techniques weren’t unique, neither was his production. People always say he’s groundbreaking but the only thing that supports that is his success. “For All the Dogs” is a microcosm of this situation. The album was hyped to the maximum degree, it had a mass of producers and features behind it, and it was going to be a revival for Drake and rap music in the 2020s. However, it was just like how Drake currently stands, okay, forgettable, and a bit of a mess.
“For All The Dogs” begins with a warped Frank Ocean sample on “Virginia Beach” leading to one of the best songs on the album where Drake expounds on his relationship with a woman who refuses to get in the box he wants for her. It then leads into a multiple-song nap without a memorable chorus or bar in the batch until about “First Person Shooter” which features a great J.Cole verse and strong upbeat production that reminds the audience of some of his earlier (and better) works in “Scorpion” and “If You’re Reading This it’s Too Late”. The rest of the album follows that structure, for almost an hour and a half. It boggles the mind that Drake wouldn’t just release an album of 9 or 10 good songs instead of a 24-song bloated mess that fails to make a dent in the mind of the listener.
When asking my friends about the album most said that most of the songs were okay, but they could barely remember the difference between them. Still, there are real gems in the album that make it a worthwhile listen like “8 Am In Charlotte” another one of Drake’s time and place series of songs with some of his best word work to date as well as a great beat from Conductor Williams. Lines off his strong first verse like “I say, We gotta talk about us, I feel like Jordan Peele/Could tell I’m getting under your skin like orange peel” may not be exact strokes of genius but they provide one of his better flows in his career. Many of the features of the album carried most of the songs, Sza provided relief from Drake’s almost trademarked whine on “Rich Babby Daddy” and Yeat pretty much made a song by him featuring Drake on “IDGAF”. The focus of the album too often veers into Drake’s weakest aspects those being his oft-repeated love life struggles and his incessant need to feel like a mob boss. The continuation of those themes will seemingly follow Drake till his career’s end.
“For All The Dogs” will probably not go down in the history books, but that’s truly Drake’s own fault for refusing to cut off the fat of an album that desperately needs to lose weight. There’s a good album in here but it’s maybe too deep down to bother.
