The certified lover boy is selectively honest, occasionally discouraged and with his ways. It will send you a text message: “I love you” and show you no; he’ll ask for a sympathetic ear, but he’ll make fun of you and leave “if you make another party of pity” about your own problems. It is Drake (past, present and future) and We certified loverconsequently, it is referential and reverential, an 86-minute bus of all things Drake. Being all at once, the Drake of We certified lover he is also undecided and even tired. Drake keeps trying to balance fame, intimacy, ambition, and insecurity, and he’s still learning who to trust — it’s always trusting Drake — but there’s a discomfort that persists on his sixth album, as if Drake is he would have lost in the Drake Library, less sure where he should devote his attention as a gap creeps into his life and lifestyle.
The worked environment of We certified lover it’s a slight surprise after following the quick and heavy release of the album billboard. While apparent rival Kanye West took a month and a half to break free Donda, darkening the project a bit more with each preview, Drake announced and released his album within a week and played shyly, ultimately did not share singles and let Tidal’s head of content serve as a ‘home hype, a role that included confirming the album’s illustration, the immaculate conception of world-class artist Damien Hirst about the emojis of 12 pregnant women set on a light white background. The cover is childish and the strangest of his discography, as if he wanted to reach an iconographic nadir before his popularity waned. In this way, Hirst’s cover suggested a lightness and even an ephemeral irony not found on the album.
At various points We certified lover, Drake seems to be trapped in the empire he has built and the narrator character he has created. Luxury and pettiness, Drake’s usual themes, are persistent throughout the album and he often seems to be tired of both. In “In the Bible,” he’s with a group of women taking shots at the Tao nightclub in Las Vegas and muttering, “You don’t know love, you don’t love me like my son.” Later, in “Pipe Down,” he sings, “How much do I have to spend to get you down?” He is not looking for a simpler life or even his own past, as he might have in 2013 Nothing was the same or in 2016 Views, but just to enjoy, to appreciate, a reason to be bigger than another trip to Air Drake with unlimited tequila; seriously, he seems wasted when he repeats, “Lotta ’42 on the flights I’m taking.” about Jay-Z’s “Love All” collaboration.
Communicating more Drake’s opulent inertia is the disc’s dark, cloistered atmosphere, a continuation of the cold Toronto sound that Drake and Noah “40” Shebib introduced to the world more than a decade ago. In general, there is a tone We certified lover—The kind of fog that a Monet facsimile could color — which, as always, brings Drake to the fore as the voice and instrument that shines through the fog. And, although the album is the most musically cohesive since then Nothing was the same, is also repetitive. There are classic, enjoyable Drake moments, such as “Girls Want Girls,” “7:00 at Bridle Path,” and “Fair Trade,” but for the most part, the production shines to the fullest. Drake’s vocal performances, too, are mostly good, the “Drake with Drake” that he could thrill during sleep. The cut of the half album “No Friends in the Industry” is particularly good, a rare song where it sounds lively and interested in what it says, experimenting with a few different flows.
Also among the first highlights of We certified lover is the rough “Way 2 Sexy,” which shows “I’m To Sexy” by Right Said Fred. The song is ridiculous at first, opening up to the future that shakes all the things for which it’s too sexy, including the codeine cough syrup, and Drake has fun as he did Hours for 2 EP and “Over the Top” by Smiley. Vanity, as silly as Right Said Fred’s, is too simple to sink into worries or interiority. It’s a recklessness she adopts in “Papi’s Home” and “Girls Want Girls,” where she declares herself with her lesbian habits, as the smartest boy in the sleeping camp. There’s always been room on Drake’s albums for these lighter tracks: “Worst Behavior,” generously, is like nothing else in Nothing was the same“But they are less and farther away.” We certified lover, immediately among the most serious versions of Drake.
And the seriousness can be good because Drake’s albums are always long—We certified lover is 15 seconds shorter than the 2011 deluxe edition Be careful—And it is hoped to immerse itself in its solipsism if it is not absolutely necessary. When Drake hears something, you are also destined to hear it, but he is feeling it all We certified lover, without ever committing to a particular mode. There’s the tough Drake from “No Friends in the Industry” and “Knife Talk,” the tender Drake from “Fonts,” the dazzling Drake from “Papi’s Home,” the thoughtful, painful Drake from “Fucking Fans,” and more. The album, in turn, feels more like a survey than an immersion, with no particular emotion left or leaving a strong impression.
There are also wide-ranging contradictions, such as when he seems to want marriage in “Race My Mind,” only to dismiss allegiance to “The Remorse,” and more immediate hypocrisies, such as “TSU,” the song that R. Kelly sadly credits. to an orchestral show of “Half on a Baby” and finds Drake shaving: “We used to do porn when you arrived, but now you have morale and shit / I had four on my wrist and an adorable kid.” It’s a phenomenon he tackles on the first track, shaving: “I lived so much for others, I don’t remember how I feel.” There are enough styles of Drake that it has been natural for him to fulfill one of his own archetypes when, at this point in his life and career, he exposes his uncertainty, trying to square the idea of himself with what he really believes. Still, music works well when it yields and combines its styles and eras, such as “In the Bible,” “Pipe Down,” and “Get Along Better,” songs that are subtle evolutions of Drake, separating the past and present.
We certified lover it opens disorientingly with a revolving, sharp sample of the “Michelle” written by McCartney-Lennon. It’s a very big thing fort loop, a bodyless voice that competes with Drake’s “Champagne Poetry” lyrics. Almost awesome, it makes no sense. The obvious reaction is that Beatles sampling is a problem, but Drake’s influence and wealth have already bought him a Michael Jackson hook well enough integrated into his song that Jackson was credited as a featured artist. (There’s also a longer, longer version of the story where it’s not really a Beatles show, it’s Singers Unlimited, and the rhythm is actually seven years old, but Paul and Yoko will still charge royalties author, so “Champagne Poetry” is not necessarily cheap.) Sometimes, you have to pull your hands up and say: Looks like Drake would do something, whether that means calculated cornice, memorable gallantry, or obligatory petulance. He is the executive producer who is also forced to do a central stage, knowing that he has to give the audience what he wants while working on a broader landscape. With a lot of We certified lover, Drake seems to be doing what he thinks Drake would do, and ticking the box takes his toll.
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