Words by Justin C. F. Lintag
It’s been a long minute since I last wrote up an album review but I think it’s time to get one off, this being the first noteworthy release (sorry RE: 2, Distant Relatives) of what’s anticipated to be a gong-show year for the genre I love so dearly. I don’t really want to grade this shit, at the very least this is a discussion about the album between me and myself, but maybe you’ll want to chime in too. First and foremost, I will say that after putting it on blast for the whole week since the June 15 drop, I have this to say, near classic. Truthfully, it’s too early to tell. And to the naysayers from the generation or 1/2 generation older than us please put this shit into perspective for your hoary old ass. Drake doing only 462,989 in first week album sales really highlights that generation gap. You don’t want to buy, let alone support the album of an artist who’s younger than you.
First off, Thank Me Later is really a fitting continuation to the first 3 songs on So Far Gone. “Lust for Life”, “Houstatlantavegas” and “Successful”. If you were to coalesce the best of SFG with the best of TML you would make a straight up and down classic in its own right, something cohesive and conceptual without having blatently stated a concept.
It has been nearly a year since Drake proclaimed this follow-up to So Far Gone and I have truly been waiting and plugging my ears to all the leaks that have been dropping in the past 2 months for Thank Me Later. Way back when, do you think Illmatic, Doggystyle, or Midnight Marauders leaked as heavy as this when they were about to be released? Do you remember the feeling you got when you popped those shits in and listened to it from front to back? It didn’t matter if you were up on it right on release date or if you were 5 years late, that sequencing of songs will forever be etched in your brain, in mine at least. I know I’m freaking some people out right now like, “what the hell is he talking about?”, so I’ll stop there. Now I don’t think I have to get into all the formalities of an album review with a back-story of the artist and all his accomplishments ’cause I’m sure anyone who’s read this far knows all about the man.
Read the rest of the review in the cut.
Drake has really reached that mega-superstar echelon in the short time he’s been revealed to the masses. And I had some inklings that he might lose his way via songs like “Bedrock”/songs with Birdman. Sequencing is truly important, they compiled the first three tracks of So Far Gone perfectly and I think they nearly achieve that same feeling here. Actually the last line of “Fear”, for those who remember, off the retail release of SFG, is sequenced to foretell what to expect of Drake on TML. Lo and behold, he repeats that line on the opening track, “Fireworks”.
“Money just changed everything“.
From a lyrical standpoint, I think the opener and “The Resistance” have some of the more potent verses. The main nodus on this album is the lack of originality in comparison to that of SFG. The heart-on-your-sleeve honesty is refreshing but it doesn’t work every time. I want to hear him go in and say shit I haven’t heard before like, “I’m the one twice over, I’m the new 11″.
but “The Resistance” does boast some extended metaphors:
“I’m 23 with a money tree
Growing more too, I just planted 100 seeds
It’s ironic cause my mother was a florist
and thats how she met my pops and now my garden is enormous”
The decision to put “Unforgettable”, “Light Up” and “Miss Me” subsequently to each other is exactly the reason why I waited to hear this album in its entirety rather than in sporadically leaked singles. Do I have to expand? We were cruising in the Regal in the rain when I first heard Thank Me Later and by the time I got to #9 and #10 the clouds had opened up for the sun and we had the windows down. Aaliyah must’ve been listening. Jeezy even got more conceptual than Drake on that sh#%. And every time I hear Jay whisper to Guru, I start looking around like the monster’s in the room.
“OOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW”
This is really a fitting ode to virtuoso Noah “40″ Shebib’s elite production craftsmanship. 40 doesn’t do every track on the album but he is the brainchild for each one. The other contributing producers really catered to 40′s auditory vision, which is an incredible feat when you consider who those producers are. ‘Ye, Swizz and Timbo, all juggernaut producers who have become their own entities in the industry, adhered to the greater whole rather than trying to shine solo on their own production. That’s the thing with Drake, he’s found his sound, and no I’m not talking about him and his singing/rapping. No one has shit that gives off such an eery, airy yet simultaneously grandiose and epic feeling in their music. There is a sort of distinction now between songs on Drake’s albums and the songs he does with others, ie. his Cash Money affiliates or even that Lebron-inspired joint (the one my 40 year-old filipino co-worker knows the words to, “last name eber, pirst name greatest”). To me, Drake’s always been rapper primary, singer secondary.
With that being said, the codas or extra interludes latched onto the ends of “Fancy” and “Shut It Down” truly lend the much needed dimensions to the layers of the album. I just was hoping “Light Up” would have concluded with something of this fashion but that’s just me being greedy.
“Miss Me” doesn’t really suffice as the lone stand out Lil Wayne feature. Neither of them live up to their hungry bravado explored on SFG’s, “Successful” or “Ignorant Shit”. Wayne tries another Bone Thugs reference but eh. I wouldn’t go as far to say that Cece’s interlude is a filler track but it’s kind of one of those throw away songs that Drake kept because it lent to the continuity of the album. I’d rather hear “Bria’s Interlude” than this. It’s really barely playable.
My pet peeve with this album is that its laced with such a penchant for airing his issues with women. He’s taken it and ran with it like any R&B songbird would do but has he really conquered and gone through so much damn heartbreak or dilemma being only 23. Too much of this subject is where he kind of loses me. He can’t go a verse and a 1/2 without mentioning a woman.
I don’t understand how people will be able to point there fingers at Drake and call him purely pop after this. Haters gon’ hate. I speak to a lot of heads about Drake, some are feeling him, some don’t. Some say they fall asleep listening to the album. I do understand that he may be irrelevant to older heads. Again, to the naysayers, I get it and I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re retarded. Either that or you’ve got too big an ego to accept the fact that this child star has become the nouveau riche in this fickle genre. Or you were up on him so late that all you’re seeing is the early accredited fame. Or you’re half-brained and intimidated by these other opinionated rap blog earwigs that you follow suit. Or you don’t realize that the most credible people in music including the rappers that you actually love are advocating the kid at the top of the totem. Or you’re retarded. And I’m taking this too seriously.
Put it this way, if Drake never went the parvenu route and stayed un-famous, and he didn’t share some of the same fans as Justin Bieber, you would call this stuff avant garde, wouldn’t you?
I guess one frightening question remains. How will he do after this? You know he wants to get more experimental, but what’s more is, he needs to avoid predictability. For lack of a better term, 40′s production is epic – and as of now it’s top of the food chain when it comes to production. So in the future what will he be able to rap/sing over when this shit gets old? When the formula gets tiresome. How many more times are we going to thank him?
