Views
On the cover of his fourth studio album *Views*, Drake looks down from atop Toronto’s CN Tower, paying homage to the city’s notoriously frigid winter temperatures in a heavyweight shearling coat and high-cut boots. He looks less like the superhero he’d made himself into over the course of a roughly six-year rise as singer-songwriter extraordinaire and more like a troubled monarch. *Views*, which followed two wildly successful projects in 2015 that he’d branded as mixtapes—*If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late* and the Future collab *What a Time to Be Alive*—would confirm him as both, his penchant for immaculate songwriting still fully intact and the pressures of existing as the most popular voice in rap, as well as his hometown’s most successful export, weighing heavy on his mind. “I made a decision last night that I would die for it,” Drake raps on “9.” “Just to show the city what it takes to be alive for it.” Drake’s presence eclipsed Toronto just about as soon as *So Far Gone* dropped, but the city—and what it thinks of him—was never far from his mind. There are references here to specific people (“Redemption”), places (“Weston Road Flows”), and experiences (“Views”), along with nods to the influence of the city’s Caribbean population on “With You,” “Controlla,” and “Too Good” (which just happens to feature Rihanna). He isn’t too much for the world, though, ruminating on his position as one of music’s biggest names—and those who’d rather he wasn’t—on songs like “Still Here,” “Hype,” and “Grammys.” Maybe the the most affecting acknowledgment to this end is the fact that “Hotline Bling,” a strong contender for 2015 song of the summer, was such an afterthought by the time *Views* was released that it appears here as a bonus track. For all intents and purposes, the Drake of *Views* is the same one we got on *If You’re Reading This* and *What a Time*, but if his previous proper album (*Nothing Was the Same*) foretold anything, it’s that the man peering down from CN Tower sees things differently than the rest of us.
Drake's fourth proper album feels claustrophobic and too long and weirdly monotone, but the occasional tweaks in sound lead to a few great moments.
“I made a career off reminiscing,” Drake gloats in a typically meta lyric on Views, his marathon fourth album, though the assertion is debatable. If anything, he’s made his career out of over-sharing. It was “Marvins Room,” a remorseful airing of his sad sexual laundry, that kick-started Drake’s reinvention from Lil…
The internet reckons that when Drake brags, “I don’t run out of material” on the track ‘Hype’, he’s hitting back at Meek Mill, the Philadelphian rapper who accused him of using ghostwriters.
The Toronto rapper's fourth full-length continues his tradition of pairing excellence with ennui.
Since the release of his last non-mixtape/non-collaboration album in 2013, Drake has solidified his position as a pop music icon, scaling the charts, dominating gossip columns, and generally living the good life.
Views has been two years in the making — two years of anticipation, rumours, leaks and loaded expectations. Originally called Views from the...
Lacking cohesiveness, Views focuses more on the single buying public...Social media is funny.
A biting wind howls as a tired and lonely king surveys his kingdom. Wrapped in thick furs, crown weighing heavy on his head and with a heart full of
The Canadian rapper continues to dissect past relationships and miscommunications, though there’s no new Hotline Bling
Drake continues to reflexively balance out this egotism by dredging up old demons and initiating new beefs.
The rapper’s latest album offers a lengthy inventory of miseries, cleverly offset by a sly sense of humour and eclectic sound. It is compelling evidence that this is the defining pop artist of the moment
Drake’s not wrong when he claims that Toronto has turned him someone who looks over their shoulders.
Drake - Views review: Shameless and delusional self-aggrandizing; unmistakeably a Drake album.