Done my first listen of views and the only word that comes to mind over and over is disjointed. I don't know if it's a bad album, but it's certainly underwhelming.
Singing on some songs he might be suited better rapping on, rapping on songs that might be better singing on. Production is mostly straight and interesting but it's clearly messy or overproduced in places, and when it is good it's usually not complemented well by the verses. Some decent vocal moments (dvsn) and a few notable punchlines too, but overall I feel like Drake's flow has never been more choppy. The Future song might just be the worst on there, physically taken aback by how grating he is on that song.
Really no super big standouts and almost every track-to-track transition is jarring; there's nothing wrong with having lots of variety in songs on an album but it just isn't working here. This should've had at least something on par with Know Yourself, but to meet the hype he needed an album full of those. And he has an album full of way too many unremarkable tracks. Stuff like Still Here sounds like something dude would throw up on soundcloud on a blue moon,.
The tracks from U With Me? through Controlla (and maybe One Dance) are decent. Best songs on there are probably U With Me?, Controlla, Fire & Desire. And I don't know if I'll be listening to any of those a few months from now.
But we'll see.
