Painfully mediocre, and repetitive, and anti-anthemic, and too long, and really unremarkable in every way.
So how bad does Views have to be for me to spend two paragraphs building it up? Not bad, actually. His albums had only gotten better, his singles had only charted higher, and his collaborations had only become more interesting as time went on three weeks ago it seemed like nothing would stop Views from achieving mythical status and being Drake’s landmark record. So when Drake claimed that Views From the 6 (retitled Views just prior to release) would be his magnum opus - his coup de grâce, his grand statement - to put Toronto permanently on top of the pop-culture landscape, I was as much a believer as anyone. In August, Drake released a decent mixtape with Atlanta’s rapper-of-the-moment Future then in October, as Drake approached 29, “Hotline Bling” took over the internet with its wonderfully meme-able music video and infinitely sing-a-longable chorus. That summer brought his beef with Meek Mill in which Drake came away victor by unanimous decision after dropping two diss tracks that were so popular they charted. Then-28-year-old Drake dropped If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late (2015) and kicked off his best year to date, repositioning the perennial sad boi of rap as a jaded sheriff who ceased giving a fuck and let fly his revolver in every which direction. Drake foresaw his own inevitability and decided, at least in that interview, that he’d attempt to go out on top (despite the success of acts like Run The Jewels, whose members are both 41, and the fact that Kanye is still dropping acclaimed albums at 38). I remember feeling respect for this he was an artist in his prime recognizing that aging artists rarely come close to their career highs and instead begin a long, slow crawl toward increasingly dated and mediocre music.
Drake once said that by the time he turned 30, he planned to no longer be rapping.
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