

#DRAKE MORE LIFE ALBUM ART PLUS#
The combination of those albums, plus Tidal’s competing arsenal of their own 2016 exclusives show the signs were obviously pointing in that direction, but it took IYRTITL and Views, two albums with scale only an artist as big as Drake could deliver, to actually drive the industry off the streaming cliff completely. It took IYRTITL and Views, two albums with scale only an artist as big as Drake could deliver, to actually drive the industry off the streaming cliff completely. Then came Views, which loudly debuted as a much-touted Apple Music exclusive, bolstering the Silicon Valley behemoth’s foray into the streaming world, along with Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book, Frank Ocean’s two albums, the company’s other exclusive releases in 2016. One year later, streaming dominated music consumption, as even digital sales slumped. Artists staggered their digital and physical releases, helping to avoid album leaks and playing into the “any song, any time” attitude the millions of fans who flocked to streaming services expected. The year that IYRTITL released, music streaming turned the corner. 2015’s IYRTITL was released exclusively on iTunes, abandoning physical CDs altogether until over one month after its initial drop. Nothing Was the Same was the last time Drake released an album with the conventional physical and online combination distribution. The fans can mix and match however they choose on their computers and smartphones.ĭigging deeper, that shift has always been apparent. Give listeners a little bit of everything, like songs to work out to, jams to pregame to, cathartic ballads to get over exes, etc. However, based off his work on IYRTITL and Views, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe Drake intentionally assembled this project this way. More Life sounds like he threw together songs that had no business belonging on the same album. His most recent project, More Life, patches up the flaws that plagued Views, but Drake and the OVO camp finally came clean about how listeners should view More Life (and, by extension, his last three projects): It’s a “playlist,” not an album.īased off his work on IYRTITL and Views, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe Drake intentionally assembled this project this way.Ĭalling it a playlist is very fitting, given that it’s one of the least cohesive projects Drake has released. His next album, Views, despite receiving mixed reviews, molded itself after IYRTITL: Each song spins alone in its own universe, existing separately from the tracks that surround them. Sure enough, IYRTITL marked a fundamental departure from what we were used to hearing from Drake, as the project sounded like Drake wanted each track to be its own standalone single.

It was a clear indicator that drastic change was on the horizon. In hindsight, the title Nothing Was the Same was much more than the project’s name. However, something strange happened once Drake dropped If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late in 2015: He stopped making albums as we knew them. From there through 2013’s Nothing Was the Same, Drake brought fans into his theater and built larger, more cinematic albums that packed emotion, banging singles, and, most importantly, narrative arc.

On 2009’s So Far Gone, Drake flipped hip-hop on its head, driving the end of the “jacking for beats” mixtape era and emphasizing the creation of complete, front-to-back projects.
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On the former Drizzy was a sensitive Canadian teen TV actor with a passion for sing-songy raps by the latter he became one of his generation’s global icons.īut if we expand out our view of Drake’s career to include everything up through his most recent release, More Life, then we’ll see an interesting shift as it relates to the music industry at large. With Drake, we saw his music and lyrics develop by leaps and bounds between his first big splash, So Far Gone, and third studio album, Nothing Was the Same. One of the marks of a great artist is seeing clear progression between albums.
