The highly-anticipated moment has finally arrived. On Mar. 18, popular rapper, Drake (and actor if we want to #TBT to his Degrassi days), released his new album, More Life.
As a Drake fan, I was really excited for this album’s release. Once it was out and I realized that there were now 22 new songs on the album for me to listen to, I had really high hopes. However, this album is quite trivial for me. Personally, I find that the album can be categorized into three sections: songs that I love, dislike, and am bored by.
There were definitely a number of successes on this album; I am not a hater of More Life. The album started out strong with “Free Smoke,” the first song on the list. It starts out with a 35-second introduction of a woman singing, accompanied by a piano intro. Suddenly, Drake speaks for a quick sentence and instantly hits us with a great beat drop; the energy at this part of the song was strong.
“Passionfruit” is another favorite song of mine on the album. It’s different in comparison from “Free Smoke” because it’s a lot more relaxed. It reminded me of a song a few spots down on the album entitled “Blem,” which I also liked. Both “Blem” and “Passionfruit” were melodic, chill, rhythmic beats that I could listen to over and over again without exhaustion.
“Lose You” came later in the album, and woke me back up after a few letdowns. What I liked most about this song was the meaning behind it. “Lose You” talked about repairing and protecting relationships – both romances and friendships – and lessons he has learned along the way. It also talked about self-improvement and ways to love yourself more. I liked how the song touched on friendships and relationships in one because often times in music, it seems as if songs get lost in all of that romantic nonsense.
“Fake Love” was dropped prior to the album’s release and was clearly a hit. If radio stations hadn’t killed it since it was released, I’d probably still really like it. This song is incredibly catchy and definitely fits the mold of a typical radio hit today in the pop world.
The last song that I was really impressed with was “Ice Melts,” a collab between Drake and Young Thug – a duo that has created music together in the past. It was a faster-paced and more upbeat song than some of the ones on the album, which is something I typically lean toward. “Ice Melts” had an ‘islandy,’ Jamaican vibe to it.
Unfortunately, I found that some of the songs really failed. For example, there were three songs in a row that I really didn’t like, and that’s when I started to wonder what the rest of the album would be like. The eighth song on the album “4422” was the first one that I listened to and really didn’t like. It was incredibly slow boring. I couldn’t wait to skip to the next song.
“Gyalchester” was the next song; it started out exactly how “4422” ended, and I didn’t like that song to begin with. It had a harder beat than “4422” did, but it didn’t pick up as much as I wanted it to. I found myself bored with it, and I wanted to skip to the next song: a third letdown in a row: “Skepta Interlude,” which I disliked for its lack of development and boring melody. It was quite unimpressionable.
“Glow” was another song that I was not impressed with. Kanye West collaborated with Drake to make this song, which sounds like a promising combination. However, it was a let down. The words, “Watch out for me, I’m about to glow,” continually repeated in the song, and I found myself getting irritated by this.
“I’m not too sure of what to make of this album,” said senior marketing student and big Drake fan, Cassie Stiansen. “I had really high hopes, but I only really like about five or six of the songs on it. I wanted to love them all, but I just don’t,” Stiansen said.
On the contrary, senior education student Nick Corrado felt otherwise. “I liked it a lot,” Corrado said. “Drake usually doesn’t let me down, and I don’t think More Life was an exception to that.”
As for the rest of the songs, I generally found to be indifferent toward. Some songs I liked more than others, but overall none of them really blew me away. I’d give the album a 6.5/10 on the whole.
IMAGE TAKEN from www.bet.com