Final Review : 6.5/10
‘Views’ was a long awaited, over hyped and over-commercialized album. To some, even a let down. This isn’t to say that it isn’t a good album but rather a disappointment because it was so over-advertised and awaited and it ended up not being all that great. The first couple of times that I listened to it I thought I liked it because I kind of felt obligated to due to all the hype surrounding it but the more I listened, the more I realized it wasn’t all that it was made out to be. Now just shy of a year later, Drake released the “playlist”, “More Life”. That’s right folks, not an album (even though it has 22 songs), not even a mixtape, but a playlist. It has been suggested that he is naming it a playlist to bring more attention and talk to the collection of music, and also leaves me pondering on whether artists will follow in the path of calling their releases playlists as well. In all reality, this is basically an album. It is comprised of 22 full length songs with a few interludes.
The album starts off with track “Free Smoke”, which includes an intro with piano and female vocals (I don’t even know who because it doesn’t tell you on the title of the track, which I think is wrong), then enters into a hype beat featuring some keys. The beat pretty much stays the same throughout the whole song. It’s a good beat, but I wouldn’t say there are any particular highlights other than him talking about drunk-texting J-Lo. Following this, is “No Long Talk” featuring Giggs, which also features a hype beat and talking about his “tings”. Giggs part is okay, he kind of whispers his part of the song, which again is okay but I wouldn’t even say his feature is needed because it didn’t really add anything to the song.
Third track is titled “Passionfruit”, and this is probably one of the best tracks on the album. It perpetuates a light and cool dance beat, but there are pauses throughout the song where the beat drifts out and in.
“Get It Together” featuring Black Coffee and Jorga Smith was an okay track, however you odn’t really hear all that much from Drake in it. The beat is good but it’s a pretty generic club dance beat. Vocals are good on here however, it doesn’t really even seem like a track from Drake because he’s barely on it.
After that, nothing really caught my ear until “Gyalchester”. 4422 featuring Sampha (pretty much only Sampha” was a really good track featuring Sampha’s beautiful vocals, but it wasn’t all that exciting. As for Gyalchester,the opening featuring piano sounds kind of cheap, but once the song actually starts its pretty hype.
“Portland” is another hype track but definitely has too many “skrrt skrrt”’s, just making it sound cheap. Additionally, the vocals are over-edited.
One of the best tracks on the “playlist” is definitely “Sacrifices” featuring 2 Chainz and Young Thug. The slow beat is catchy, the lyricism is personal, the pace is nice, and it features a good amount of everyone. I also enjoy the sections where the beat tunes out and all you hear is the piano.
Overall, there are some older Drake vibes on this which I like, but I think the first half of the “playlist” is far better than the second half, and I remember feeling the exact same way about Views. I feel as though he didn’t have to do 22 tracks because some of them are cheap or boring. For instance, “Nothings Into Somethings” brought back some older drake vibes but it was kind of on the boring side, it was missing. something. “Can’t Have Everything” carried a good message, but was also boring. Also, I was expecting more from “Glow” featuring Kanye. It had a good beat but if it has Kanye’s name on it I’m gonna be expecting a fire track, and it just wasn’t.
