The long and heavily anticipated wait is finally over, as Drake dropped his new album “For All The Dogs” on Friday, Oct. 6. Drake took us on a journey as he showed his versatility with many different flows and beats. We will take a deeper dive into this album as we list some positives and negatives throughout the piece along with our overall grade of Drake’s newest work.
Let’s look at the positives:
Drake followed up his previous album “Her Loss” strongly with “For All The Dogs.” Unlike his previous albums, the golden boy of the music industry really opened up and showed his different styles of singing. These experimental songs really held our interest through a considerably long 23 song track list. Debatably the best song of the year came off this album in “First Person Shooter.” J. Cole and Drake matched each other perfectly, and the upbeat lyrics created a head-bobbing feeling throughout the song. This wasn’t the only hit song. Others included “Virginia Beach ”, “Tried Our Best” and “8AM in Charlotte.” Drake developed moods for every type of feeling, ranging from the sadder songs to R&B and drill.
While his lyricism isn’t as great as it was in his earlier years, Drake definitely still has the “it” factor in his music. In “Tried Our Best”, he shows off his lyricism, saying, “ I swear to God, you think I’m Shakespeare. That’s why you always wanna play, right?” Drake expressed again how superior he still is when he went month by month explaining his love life on “Slime You Out.”
Another factor that we heavily enjoyed on the album was the exceptional features. SZA on “Slime You Out” and “Rich Baby Daddy”, Yeat on “IDGAF” and Lil Yachty on “Another Late Night” were all noteworthy. Producing was top-notch per usual for Drake albums, as big producer names like BNYX and 40 set the base for Drake to work off of for many songs. This project still has to marinate for it to be considered one of the greatest albums he has created, but the potential for it to be could easily be argued. This was a positive “bounceback” album after many considered Drake’s last three to be disappointing; the album is already hitting #1 on all Billboard charts.
Of course, music is subjective and nothing can truly be considered perfect. Let’s look at some areas where the album was lacking:
The album started off strong with “Virginia Beach”, a captivating and fitting intro to this album that was followed by “Amen” with Teezo Touchdown which was melodic and showcased some creative wordplay. However, the album somewhat lost momentum as the next three songs turned out to be slightly disappointing. “Calling For You” was below average for a song with Drake and 21 Savage, partially because we are used to hearing such good music from the duo. It also includes a recording of a woman complaining for about a minute and a half before 21 Savage even starts rapping. It is definitely not enjoyable to listen to, especially because the whole time you are just waiting for the 21 Savage verse which is not that special. “Fear of Heights” has a decent beginning but the beat change that leads into the chorus is arguably what makes the song worse. There is a pretty even split between good bars and mediocre ones in this song. After that is “Daylight” which features Drake’s son, Adonis, at the end of the song. Although this is interesting and creative, it does not make the song better. The beat on this song is pretty generic and the chorus is repetitive. Overall, this first part of the album wasn’t exactly a letdown, but it also wasn’t the highlight of the album, as it seems Drake intended it to be.
After “Daylight”, the album immediately begins to turn in a better direction with songs that are considered favorites by many, such as “First Person Shooter” featuring J. Cole, “IDGAF” featuring Yeat and “Slime You Out” featuring SZA. Songs that follow like “7967 Santa”, “Bahamas Promises”, “Tried Our Best”, “Drew A Picasso” and “Members Only”, featuring PARTYNEXTDOOR, are good, but not special. This part of the album displays more of Drake’s vocal abilities and a bit less rap. The extent to which people liked these songs is mostly based on their preference for songs with more singing or more rapping.
Drake returns to heavy rap songs in the next couple tracks like “What Would Pluto Do”, “All The Parties” with Chief Keef and “8am in Charlotte.” These songs were fun to listen to because of the clever verses and excellent beats from producers like Conductor Williams. The song with Bad Bunny, “Gently”, was cool but kind of hard to follow due to Drake’s rapping in both Spanish and English and various beats throughout the song. That being said, it was a good song to listen to and definitely makes you want to dance. The mood of the songs winds down at the end of the album from “Another Late Night”, featuring Lil Yachty, which was an upbeat and energetic song, to “Polar Opposites”, a slower, more melancholy track to close out the album.
Overall, “For All The Dogs” is a classic Drake album. There are a variety of different beats, flows and features. Some of the choices made in the production of this album did not really work out, but its shortcomings barely take away from the fact that it is a great album that represents Drake’s talent as a songwriter and rapper.
