Play Me Some Simpin, Mane: Drake - Nothing Was the Same

We got a lotta Drake threads too. I'm talking about the content of the music, not taking issue with people listening to and discussing hugely popular artists.

yeah that's true

what's this album's "Velcro Fly"?

wrt significance porn, is it taken as given that this album owes a conscious debt to kendrick's?

this ain't no new jersey imo

he's had two top ten singles off this album already

a New Jersey is a hit album with hit singles

i mean, when i think of a contemporary new jersey i think of lady gaga, this is nowhere near as clumsy—it's a refinement of his pre-existing aesthetic

The Black Album is one of Drake's top 5 favorite albums, all he really learned from Jay-Z is how to act so important that people feel important just by listening to you. He has 3 albums and they're all Black Album style career recaps.

― Jean-Claude Brand Ambassador (some dude), Thursday, September 26, 2013 8:24 AM (1 hour ago)

can i guess his other 4?

some ugk album
aaliyah
some coldplay or radiohead album
some kind of wu tang related album, probably liquid swords

Idk. Ship is a great writer and all but he writes off one of the most distinct voices of his generation as basically a plagiarist who can't sing or rap but who has nonetheless dominated the charts for years now doing just that. It kinda feels as if some part of the puzzle is missing.

yes, people have atrocious taste

better Ship's approach to the We Must Treat HIm as Important Artist approach of other magazines.

I am trying to think of things Drake could do that would ruin his career and am coming up blank

i'm glad someone is articulating that POV. I don't know that it most closely explains my experience with THIS album, but it def explains my problems with early '09 era drake

this was the review that made me listen to the record -

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/nothing-was-the-same-is-pretty-standard-drake-but-pretty-standard-drake-is-extremely-talented

Few approaches to any artists are as annoying as Must Treat Them As Important. A) popularity brooks no dissent? B) critics obv don't believe that b/c tons of popular artists get no critical love - but that sort of logic leads you to having to defend pretty much everyone w/ a stanbase, which is a critical dead-end to say the least

Like I'm basically pro-Gaga and I do think she's culturally significant, but it'd be silly to ignore her own elements of pastiche/laziness/etc

i cant read all caps reviews

i mean tbh there are a good number of Drake songs i can jam, they just aren't on this record. i feel like he's good at collaborating and bouncing off of other rappers and what made his run of 2012 guest spots enjoyable isn't carried over into NWTS at all.

also i just wanted to articulate some thoughts about his music in plain terms because i feel like the discourse around Drake has become this repetitive stalemate of "lol he's so soft" vs. "you can make fun of Drake for being soft but his music is undeniable"

jfc that vice url

The most annoying defence is definitely "drake has CHANGED THE GAME by being soft/emotionally honest". Like rap was never emotional before

yeah i didn't wanna harp to much on comparing aubs to his elders but i hear songs like "too much" that are supposed to be these deep confessionals and they feel so scattered and vague compared to a classic introspective song by jay or scarface or outkast.

I would rather listen to LL's "I Need Love" on an endless loop for a month than any given sensitive Drake song

LL needed love too

ah fuck xp

"the kid mero"

drake is kind of the rap game alicia keys, just a huge hack who's incidentally made some good music but has convinced everyone he's a genius

That's actually a pretty good comparison, right down to how vague their songwriting actually is

imagine if he played the pie-anna too.

that's a funny idea

actually I retract that statement

can i guess his other 4?

some ugk album
aaliyah
some coldplay or radiohead album
some kind of wu tang related album, probably liquid swords

You forgot Take Care and Thank Me Later.

That's actually a pretty good comparison, right down to how vague their songwriting actually is

― lex pretend, Thursday, September 26, 2013 12:33 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry gonna keep raining on the drake hater parade but drake has had a parade of hits that arent so easily characterized as grammy bait

so... Drake's 14 Grammy nominations were all flukes?

sorry 13, I miscounted

drake having his songs in constant rotation on radio for the past five years isn't really comparable to people on the grammy committee who thought alicia keys brought back real soul music with "falling" is my point

like, he's a pop star making hits w/ regularity ... alicia was never that

Exactly. My whole point is that we should now have moved past the phase where we complain about Drake's lack of a singing voice and how Kanye did it first. Dude dominates this era and it can't be chalked down to the poor taste of the record buying public anymore. He's not exactly Flo Rida.

it can't be chalked down to the poor taste of the record buying public anymore

why not?

It's his Achtung Baby, man.

like, he's a pop star making hits w/ regularity ... alicia was never that

Alicia Keys 2001-2004 would disagree with you (ignoring the 2007 resurgence as it wasn't a contiguous year)

Alicia Keys being a critical darling now doesn't change the fact that for the beginning of her career, she was a critical darling AND a big crossover pop act.

My whole point is that we should now have moved past the phase where we complain about Drake's lack of a singing voice and how Kanye did it first. Dude dominates this era and it can't be chalked down to the poor taste of the record buying public anymore. He's not exactly Flo Rida.

well no, he can sell albums

When was the last time someone had a run like Drake's and you could chalk it all down to the poor taste of the record buying public, who apparently didn't notice that their hero could neither rap nor sing?

Are you his producer or something?

well, the way ship tells it no one's had a run like Drake

but since we're talking Billboard placings, which is all about sales, seems to me that it's all predicated on a combination of the record buying public buying what they buy and my not agreeing with their purchases

if you want me to list acts that have sold a bajillion records while being horrible I'll be happy to oblige you

I doubt anyone here wants that tho

Drake had 17 hot 100 singles since '09

alicia had 9, one of which was 'unplugged' and one of which was with usher

[in that '01-04 window]

i know there's an element of support for drake that is on some 'genius auteur' shit but i feel like that's generally pretty overstated ... most of his support is really, at the end of the day, that he keeps making hits. The biggest stream of contiguous massive crossover hits for a rap artist since the golden era of bad boy

an era also oddly predicated on a hero that could neither rap nor sing ie Puffy

Yes. Agreed. He has also effectively shaped how rap hits sound in this era.

Xpost.

Assorted Drake thoughts:

- I'm startled by how critic-proof he's been. It leads me to suspect that he may be very consciously two steps ahead of the critical establishment. Chalk it up to vagueness or chameleon tendencies or whatever, but he's been consistently able to have hate (from more than just pop critics) slide off him like he's wearing Vaseline.

- I think it’s really silly to keep harping on the “soft Drake” meme, when it’s a criticism that’s been leveled at him from the beginning and has never hurt his career in the slightest. I’ve always imagined him as a mentally tough person; maybe not a gun-toting psycho in the MMG vein, but apart from the most hardcore internet Clipse fans, who cares about how much weight a rapper actually moves? Personal qualities like mental toughness come through very nicely on a record, whereas on the other hand you can be an insecure, numbers-obsessed pedant like Pusha and continually make a fool of yourself in search for attention while not really building much of a long-term fanbase. (I don’t know why I have such a bone to pick with Push.)

- I also think that Drake's lackadaisical attitude, so infuriating to some, is the reason that I don't really see him gunning for anything like “significance” in the some dude sense. He doesn't seem terribly concerned with the approval of strangers, where I see “significant” albums like The Chronic or Illmatic or MBDTF or Good Kid as products of artists who have a million things to prove to everyone. I think the insecurity of artists like Dre, Nas, Kanye, Kendrick, etc fosters a neurotic perfectionism necessary for these beautifully crafted albums. I don’t see any of that neurotic perfectionism in Drake. He’s obviously concerned with quality, but not to the obsessive degree that these other artists are. That’s a lot of his appeal to me - just that he seems like an ultimately chill dude. I’m sure that plays a lot into the “relatable” thing that his fans seem to enjoy.