Honestly, Nevermind - Drake

REVIEWED: August 28, 2022

Drake has returned to his Passionfruit summer sound. My first impression of this project was that it would be the perfect background music for my summer. There was no deep meaning or anything to the lyrics, but it was just pleasing to the ear. It generally just felt like a summer vibe, that is the best way to describe the album. Drake has been dropping an album, or even two, a year for a while now. Some people argue that his discography is becoming oversaturated with mediocre music. While this may be accurate to an extent, I feel that Drake is the type of artist to play it safe. He is not necessarily going to drop a revolutionary experimental album this deep into her career. He has a vast and established fanbase that he needs to cater to, and in order to do so, the music must be kept as safe as possible. Compared to Certified Lover Boy, I preferred the length of this project. CLB definitely had some bangers, but it felt like it went on forever and had a lot of dead space or filler. Honestly, Nevermind had just the right amount of tracks. In terms of rollout, there wasn’t any. It was a borderline-surprise drop; we found out only hours before it actually came out. To some, this was the perfect way to release it because they didn’t feel themselves developing any unrealistic expectations for what was to come. Others felt it was the perfect rollout because they found the project lazy and forgettable. For me, I didn’t really have a preference; it was a nice addition to my night seeing that Drake was dropping, as I generally enjoy his music. Unfortunately for Drake, he was not the only artist who dropped this year; so did Kendrick. Drake’s album was certainly not received as warmly as Kendrick’s was. It was labelled as shopping mall music, and some on TikTok even came to the conclusion that it was “setting the Black community back.” Drake’s music is enjoyable to listen to, I can get behind this sentiment. Whether you are hanging out with friends or crying in your room, you know that a Drake song exists for the occasion. As of right now, Drake has 65 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Regardless of the endless stream of hate he receives, someone is listening–multiple “someones” are listening. Must music always be an allegory for topical issues? Kendrick has been praised for his ability to tackle difficult topics like toxic masculinity and the Black experience in America, but must an artist restrict themselves to success through the exploitation of trauma? I hope everyone will be more open-minded regarding the music they consume and realize there are different occasions for each sound. Thank you so much for reading this week’s review! If you guys have any feedback for me, please send it to my email; I appreciate anything you have to say! See you next Monday.