Drake: More Life ALBUM REVIEW

At this point, everyone and their mother's dead mother knows who Drake is, and that same group of people know just how bad Drake's last LP Views was. I, like any logical human being, thought that Drake's last album was a huge bore almost completely bereft of anything notable or even slightly positive. But it's the current year, and Drake has released another new "playlist" called More Life. Was I hoping to see Drake pull together another good project? Yes. Was I expecting that to happen? No. And to be completely honest, More Life is so middle of the road in terms of how much I enjoyed it, it's almost like the album doesn't even exist, or it is simply made up of all the good and bad memories I have associated with Drake's music.

For example, the first half of this album is packed with one limp, fake patois laden "dancehall" tune after another; tracks like "No Long Talker" are some of Drake's worst ever, simply because there is nothing legitimate to be found in the song, everything feels like a put-on. Whereas tracks like "Do Not Disturb", "Free Smoke", and "Sacrifices" feature some pretty decent bars from Drake and all features involved, especially Young Thug, who I feel was the overall MVP on this album; both of his contributions were highly enjoyable for me.

And while I am happy to report that there are solid moments here, some (like "Do Not Disturb") even border on true greatness, for the most part, More Life is pretty much more Views. Especially, again, with all the freakin' dancehall tracks and... Drake saying "tings" on more than one occasion. Also, the production is kind of middling, which is odd, because this is pretty much the same crew that produced If You're Reading This It's Too Late. Tracks like "Passionfruit" and "Nothings Into Somethings" sound really rough. On top of that, there are just a lot of half-baked songs here, "Teenage Fever" being the prime example, as it relies mostly on the sample to carry the entire track.

So, yeah, this album was a pretty frustrating listen for me. Because while I didn't like Views, it at least had the decency to be all bad, whereas More Life is really good at some points. Honestly, if Drake continues to release one mild-to-bad album after another, I'll go ahead and skip on the next album.

5.5/10