Drake - Views

Such is the culture around Drake these days that as quickly as he can become a web omnipresence, he can be turned upon. A glance at a longer than average track-list, a half-listen to a few opening tracks, or one too many self-indulgent lines, is enough to break Drake, just as one hook can shoot him skywards. To expect the same audience who had turned the ‘Views’ artwork into a meme within minutes to sit down and listen to 20 tracks of Drake’s inner workings is a big ask, but this is the critical mind-set Drake has curated around himself. It’s now both his greatest ally and worst enemy.

It’s been a while since Drake has been able to exist successfully in the context of a whole album, rather than in dissected snippets and pull quotes. So massive are his singles - and so cleverly constructed are his albums and mixtapes for a generation with a famously short attention span - that the times when he operates on a wider scale and creates for himself, rather than for the internet and the charts, take some getting used to. Drawling, half-sung half-spoken tracks - with the monotonous filtered drum beats producer Noah “40” Shebib has made his name on - suddenly pander in the wake of the big hooks and choruses the likes of ‘Hotline Bling’ and ‘One Dance’ bring to the table. But there’s still merit to the more introverted moments.