The build-up in the second half of the song is well-orchestrated before becoming suddenly anticlimactic (drums after its high point feel glaringly absent). “Champagne Poetry” can feel like an at once remarkable and uneven opener: it has the pristine, ambitious energy of most of Drake’s album intros, but its effect is heavily diminished for listeners who are already familiar with the already popular Masego track “Navajo,” mirroring that song’s sample here with a Beatles interpolation. Speaking of whom, “Way 2 Sexy,” featuring Future and Young Thug (following up the trio’s 2020 collab, the stellar “D4L”), is perhaps the album’s most polarizing track: the beat is glorious and boisterous, while the core sample (Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy”) and Future’s chorus are immediately cringey, even as the naturally zanier Young Thug slides in with ease.
#DRAKE VIEWS FULL ALBUM TRACK LIST SERIES#
“7am On Bridle Path” is a typically strong entry to the AM/PM series (“4pm in Calabasas,” “6am in Toronto,” etc.) “Fountains” is a stale follow-up to his other dancehall tracks, a la “One Dance” “Girls Want Girls” is another infectiously moody, melodic R&B trap that could be a fresh version of “Time Flies” “TSU” is a catchier, smoother “Greece” “Knife Talk” is a lesser version of another 21 Savage collab, “Sneakin’.”Īside from a lack of fat-trimming - the second half in particular outstays its welcome - there are some nice highs: “N 2 Deep,” for instance, is as adventurous as Drake has been in some time, its first half set over a gritty guitar that feels unintentionally reminiscent of “Jail” from “Donda,” followed by a standard but nevertheless satisfying beat switch to a back-and-forth with Future.
It’s an album that feels like the work of a fan curating an enjoyable but ultimately unadventurous mix of Drake’s works from the last five years or so. Yet “Certified Lover Boy,” a long-awaited album that was delayed by more than a year, exists in the same vein: not as some refined, cohesive work, but an overlong dump of tracks that can be briefly exhilarating, quickly infectious and absent of any noticeable evolution or risk from someone who might credibly be considered the world’s biggest artist. Through that B-side pile, we’ve received a trove of really memorable cuts - songs that shoot straight into playlists for partying, late-night moodiness, and cutting underdog bangers. The highly successful strategy here is to keep his hold on the culture, while we wait for the real-deal album material. But it officially stamps Drake’s self-proclaimed golden era as what might also be considered his “playlist era.” In the last five years leading up to this record, Drake has released one official album (2018’s “Scorpion”), but also a long playlist of original tracks (“More Life”), a repackaged bundle of past loosies (“Care Package”) and another collection of “demo tapes” (“Dark Lane Demo Tapes”). “Certified Lover Boy” is a perfectly fine record - it’s expensively well-produced, like all of Drake’s albums, and easily likable with a decent batting average for a nearly hour-and-a-half record. It’s also what makes his new album a confirmation of a rapper partially trapped in pop superstar stasis. It is this energy - one hyper-focused on maintaining his reign - that keeps him smiling. By most measures, he’s right: few artists have maintained a stranglehold on music or culture at large for as long as he has. “Far as the Drake era, man, we in the golden ages,” he raps later on that same “Bridle Path” track. Indeed, despite only a couple direct promotional efforts, the album will bully the charts - as you read this, a dozen tracks are likely climbing over one another like crabs in a bucket, reaching for slots atop every relevant ranking.
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