Drake released his newest album, “For All The Dogs,” on Oct. 6. The album is good, but was also one of Drake’s worst albums he’s released yet and does not come close to the expectations set for it. Drake’s lyrical ability that had been put on display in the past, is buried behind the likes of others featured on the album
Leading up to the album’s release, many of Drake’s fans expected this to be a very rap-centric album, considering R&B has dominated most of Drake’s recent drops. The fans ended up being very wrong, as there is hardly any rap to be found in “For All The Dogs.”
The album does do a few things right. For one, the album is almost an hour and a half long, meaning it’ll be hard for someone to not find at least a couple songs to add to their playlist.
Secondly, the album does have some really good features, as is the case with all of Drake’s music. Notably, Teezo Touchdown, who just broke onto the scene with his feature on Travis Scott’s “Utopia,” has another great feature with Drake on the song “Amen.” 21 Savage is great on “Calling for You,” as he always is when hopping on a track with Drake.
Other features include Yeat, SZA, Chief Keef and Lil Yachty among others. However, the best feature of them all is J. Cole’s appearance on “First Person Shooter.” He really brought his unique flow perfectly into the song and frankly, carried the song.
Unfortunately, that is a theme throughout the whole album. The songs in which there is a feature, Drake is completely overshadowed. In past drops, Drake has always done extremely well in complimenting his features, but that just isn’t the case this time around.
Another major flaw with the album is that it lacks variety. It seems like almost every song has the same type of flow, leading to the album being a hard listen from start to finish without taking any breaks.
Overall, the album is not bad but it wasn’t anything like what we’re used to with Drake. There are no songs that are instant skips, but there also aren’t any songs that make you turn the sound up when driving on your way home from work.
This is the fourth album Drake has dropped in roughly the past two years, and perhaps its mediocrity is a product of the old saying, “quantity over quality.” Drake has come out and said that he will be taking a break from making music, which is probably a good thing.
Hopefully when Drake returns, he’ll get back to dropping instant classics that have a variety of both R&B and rap. For now though, the listener is stuck with perhaps Drake’s most unforgettable album yet.
