Simpin Ain't Easy: The Official Thread For Drake's Sophomore Album, TAKE CARE

I mentioned "marvin's room" in my lecture today on Satan's seduction of Eve in Book 9 of Paradise Lost- the "i'm just sayin you could do better" line seems to fit with Satan's M.O.

― the tune is space, Monday, November 14, 2011 1:27 PM (10 minutes ago)

milton wept

people is rapism the new rockism or what. i haven't heard a single cogent criticism in this thread yet; the h8rs seem to be either calling it dandelion rap or saying drake isn't authentic enough

look, the album sounds nice, and the narrative is sincere and modern. i srsly don't get how ppl are critiquing his swag as awkward and forced. the album is extremely confident; it's just, like... a really new brand of confidence. it's like canadian swag or something, restrained and responsible. lol.

this is my favorite album of the year

again not a single mention of the rapping in the above gushing

there's not much to say about the rapping really. if anything i'd describe it as concise. i like it. it sounds crisp. drake doesn't waste space. i can tell cuz i often have a hard time concentrating on rap lyrics, but everything on take care pops out to me.

i mainly like the record for the narrative. since the narrative stood out to me on first listen, which rarely happens, that probably means the rapping is successful.

interestingly, drake's questionable punchlines are kind of interesting just cuz they're so unfunny. his humorless nature might even add to his empathetic brand. basedgod and waka are the two funniest rappers out right now, and they're sociopaths.

i trust fennel cartwright's opinion

what's the narrative exactly? i couldn't tell you

to me as inoffensively pleasant as this record can sound there's a pretty inescapable air of unlikeable patheticness that constantly hangs over it - i mean drake embodies confidence if by confidence we're talking about something coming from a self-pitying douche who reads tucker max

confidence if by confidence we're talking about something coming from a self-pitying douche who reads tucker max

pusha t
kanye

not drake

oh ya also terius

interestingly, drake's questionable punchlines are kind of interesting just cuz they're so unfunny

fyi this is not interesting

imo the narrative is something along the lines of how the humblebrag can be a legit humility tactic

it doesn't sound sincere either

canadian swag or something, restrained and responsible

:o

while i think terius's confidence is of a different, more macho flavor than drake's, sure i agree he's a terrible person. unlike drake however he's capable of the dissonance a "fuck my brains out" creates

fuck my brains out better not be part of the terius canon. dissonance is overrated and at any rate waka has the dissonance game on lock right now

not a dis on terius; he's compelling, but he's just a srs creep. by all accounts drake is a nice dude.

i don't get why everyone rushes to accuse drake of overcompensating, faking humility, being all priestly sickness. usually when ppl get like this they wear it on their beautiful dark twisted sleeve

also lex, the majority of the record consists of drake either trying to be a nice guy to the lady or "trying to be a nice guy to the lady" depending on how you see it. either way that's a more responsible outlook than runaway kanye.

i think part of it has to do with the fact that drake's confidence or whatever ('swag' lol) codes as a whole lot more unfashionable than others we've mentioned or we're used to in this genre. he's trying to have it both ways - i guess your point is that he's sort of creating a new type of swag ('how the humblebrag can be a legit humility tactic') but he's not pulling it off imo

with kanye there's really no hiding the fact that he's an egocentric douche; drake is that frat bro who feigns sensitivity to get chicks

ya no doubt the feigned sensitivity ("priestly sickness") works for him. but i dunno, i get the impression his moral compass has stayed pretty true and he still knows what's really good. like for all the chicks he gets, i've never heard anything along the lines of him being a womanizer or a sleaze. this whole stripper thing with him - seems like he's just a dude who likes sex, wants a relationship, and is able to delineate between the two unlike the kanyes and teriuses of the world

for example, i find it admirable that he is still cool with nicki and rihanna

that doesn't strike me as particularly notable behaviour let alone admirable

in contrast, terius meets cute underage girls, tells them they'll get famous if they fuck him, decides to marry them cuz he can't control his emotionzzz, gets frustrated about having to deal with a supposedly equal party, cheats on them, breaks up, does the same thing with a new chick, then writes a bitchy record about how awful his ex was

then we have the chris browns of the world. iunno, mature relationships seem few and far between in pop music

well it's the classic "nice guy" issue whereby a dude expects to be lavished with praise for just expressing the basic minimum of normal human consideration but gets so wrapped up in his own "nice guy" image that he doesn't realise how self-absorbed and condescending he is

i mean no one is arguing that kanye or terius is a nice guy, or particularly attractive in any way. terius is a superb musician though!

i really like terius' (and kanye's) music too, although terius' post-love king output has been generally horrid

see i think your self-absorbed nice guy thing applies to so far gone drake, and although i haven't heard much of it, probably thank me later drake. i think take care is drake realizing o shit, i've gone and been a condescending asshole this whole time, actually thinking it over and trying to move past it

that being said drake still has a long way to go. i find his thing with that gil-scott heron song questionable, like i really hate that chorus. "if you let me [...] i'll take care of you." wtf is "if you let me," just mtfu and be nice to the lady unconditionally! but hey we all have a ways to go w.r.t. being decent human beings; i think we're being a bit unfair to drake in calling him out for not being 100% the man he could be. afaik nobody ever called gil scott-heron a rampant womanizer

Being a nice guy doesn't make you a good artist.

i trust fennel cartwright's opinion

― buzza, Tuesday, November 15, 2011 1:48 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i trust fennel cartwright is a sockpuppet

there have been many cogent criticisms in this thread. no one has accused him of 'not being authentic enough' gtfo

see i think your self-absorbed nice guy thing applies to so far gone drake, and although i haven't heard much of it, probably thank me later drake. i think take care is drake realizing o shit, i've gone and been a condescending asshole this whole time, actually thinking it over and trying to move past it

― lil jon & vangelis (fennel cartwright), Tuesday, November 15, 2011 2:52 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so, yet another navel-gazing self obsessed record about a narcissist who isn't actually good at rapping. sounds awesome.

i mean seriously, he brags about shit but what did he do to earn that bragging? this is the thing that u aren't getting re: 'authenticity' -- there's an understanding from the audience that u earn that right, to brag; either you were the best rapper on your block / in your city, or you had a unique flow or way with phrases.

im willing to accept that neurotic self-analysis from a rich guy is something that lots of people think is novel & interesting in hip-hop, but you're not going to convince me that it's interesting enough to justify calling him one of the great rappers, or saying that he's earned 'the throne.' plain & simple hes just not an engaging rapper. i can understand why people find him to be an engaging pop star -- although those reasons seems pretty banal & have precedence in pop already, frankly -- but imo he hasn't through his music earned his arrogance (note that 'earning it' has nothing to do w/ starting out poor or something)

cogent criticism : he has an awful voice & is bad at rapping.

i actually agree with that but it strangely hasn't stopped me from really enjoying this album.

i don't know, i would like to hear this record that fennel cartwright is hearing

but mostly to me drake's narrative on take care is one of an uninteresting asshole

lex's point about how drake never actually raps about anyone even as he addresses them is a pretty cogent point imo. like, even when he addresses his haters (one of his three big narratives, "drake vs. haters," "drake vs. women," and "drake vs. the vague obstacles that he overcame to arrive at this point"), they fail to take on any sort of substance or matter to the listener.

which again might sound like an authenticity argument, but i guess i think that drake fails to bring anything to the table in terms of rapping, which brings the whole enterprise down, and therefore we are left with a record of p good music obscured by a weird, terrible shadow.

the pfork review compares this record to here, my dear and that's a tremendous stretch, but here, my dear could also be an example of this album done properly, with an actual personality at the fore to direct the weird musical alchemy underneath. a compelling personality, not a personality you can confuse with the fucking weeknd.

in contrast, terius meets cute underage girls, tells them they'll get famous if they fuck him, decides to marry them cuz he can't control his emotionzzz, gets frustrated about having to deal with a supposedly equal party, cheats on them, breaks up, does the same thing with a new chick, then writes a bitchy record about how awful his ex was

― lil jon & vangelis (fennel cartwright), Tuesday, November 15, 2011 3:29 AM (5 hours ago)

for someone who criticized the (perceived) authenticity angle another critic was taking re: drake, you're sure incorporating a lot of extradiegetic material into your opinion of his music

and i really would challenge anyone to give examples of drake's supposed nuance & maturity re: relationships in his music - ffs look at the first 2 graphs of that pitchfork review:

In 1976, Marvin Gaye holed up in his Hollywood studio and began recording Here, My Dear, a brutally candid album-length dissection of his divorce from wife Anna Gordy. The soul great found beauty within the wreckage, and the album doubled as an emotional exorcism that pushed out pain, anger, regret, spite, vengeance. "Memories haunt you all the time/ I will never leave your mind," he threatens on a song called "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You". Reviewing the album upon its release in 1978, critic Robert Christgau wrote, "Because Gaye's self-involvement is so open and unmediated... it retains unusual documentary charm."

The same could be said of Drake, whose unrepentant navel-gazing and obsession with lost love reach new levels on his second proper LP, Take Care. Running with Gaye's ghost, Drake offers a profane update of his forebear's twisted heart: "Fuck that nigga that you love so bad/ I know you still think about the times we had," he sings on the insidious hook of "Marvins Room", a song recorded in the same studio where Gaye originally exposed his own unedited thoughts more than three decades ago.

i'd say he's got a ways to go still

like i read that and was like "uh what is the point you're trying to make exactly?"

again i understand this is pretty deep shit for the fratboy contingent but really we could do well to have some higher standards

oh what brad said already xp

this is so long

this is so long

also i am a dude who put thank me later on his year-end list last year so i've been trying to figure out why: 1) i did that, and 2) why i think this record fails even though i did that

i really think the production is gorgeous but it's also the thing that makes it impossible to ignore drake. thank me later snaked through a lot of different colors, and also had this whole rising and falling action going on in the pacing; you could get distracted by that. but take care is mostly one mood, and the lone just blaze track on here is like coming up for air after 40 or so minutes in the brocean.

i still think one of ilx's finest moments ever is failing to even nominate thank me later for the EOY poll that year. not one user thought it should even be in contention! so much <3

LET'S DO IT AGAIN THIS YEAR OK?

^^^not gonna happen

http://stereogum.com/880331/album-of-the-week-drake-take-care/top-stories/

fwiw i think this is a much better record than TML on any number of levels; i'm really interested by this record, as a phenomenon. because there are things it does well, i think. ultimately, it's a failure to me for reasons i've already overexplained but no one has quite captured this record in writing the way i want to see it written about

The Lil Wayne/Rick Ross/DJ Khaled collab “I’m On One” was my first indication that Drake was doing something special this year. It’s not on Take Care, but it’s really a Drake song with a couple of extra guest verses and some easily-ignored DJ bellowing. On past posse cuts like “Forever,” Drake felt like he had to sound tough and bulldoze through his verses, and it didn’t work — for me, anyway. But on “I’m One One,” Drake floats over the beat, letting icy loneliness creep into his voice and dancing around the airily gorgeous beat on his own verse. The track effectively brings Ross and Wayne into Drake’s universe rather than floundering toward someone else’s idea of rap epicness. And it conveys a feeling — a lost, stoned-out remoteness that finally gives dimension and force to all the fuck-fame silliness of Thank Me Later; without blasting us in the face with the idea, Drake finds away to convey how alienating all that fame might be to a young guy like him. And it also recalls all the too-much-drugs-and-sex coldness of Drake’s buddy and fellow Torontonian the Weeknd, who’s become something of a spirit animal for Drake this year.

like, i agree, from an objective perspective, w/ what he describes here. whats weird is that for me it still comes across as odd; "I ain't went this hard since i was 18" just feels like a forced, awkward use of slang. i just cant imagine anyone using 'going hard' that way in a normal rap song. it just feels like a kind of odd outsider use of rap lingo & it takes me out of it

oh, breihan writes for stereogum? huh

i find it a lil hypocritical that the waka stans on here are so confident that drake is an Objectively Poor Rapper. haven't we already established that Technical Rap Acumen means nothing?

re: nice guy thing - being a nice guys doesn't automatically make you a good artist, but it does give you a unique arc in a genre filled with huge dicks. for the record, i think drake has the single most unique arc in hiphop.

that p4k block w/ lyrics only tells half the story. sure, jerk drake is prominent, but i get a distinct vibe that he's... uncomfortable with how much of an asshole he is. like, the most douchey lyric on the record, "all those guys were just practice for me," is inexplicably mashed up with juvenile. it's so entirely absurd that to me it makes it hard to take jerk drake at face value.

re: authenticity

i mean seriously, he brags about shit but what did he do to earn that bragging? this is the thing that u aren't getting re: 'authenticity' -- there's an understanding from the audience that u earn that right, to brag; either you were the best rapper on your block / in your city, or you had a unique flow or way with phrases.

well... drake is obv the biggest (pretty objective indicator of 'best' for most ppl's standards) rapper out of canada. he's also popular, which goes toward bragging rights. regarding "unique flow" he did invent hashtag rap as much as y'all hate it. so no, he's not exactly rozay - who, by the way, everyone has given up on calling out for "not earning right to brag" and seems to legitimately like these days.

deej your main issue seems to be that drake is an "odd outsider" which "takes you out of it." i agree that he is an odd outsider but i personally find it refreshing and interesting. i'm not a sock puppet btw.

this is so long

i'm just jazzed to be having an Important Music Conversation about someone who's not a one hit wonder for once

there are so many little things waka does well that make him a more interesting and fresh technical rapper than drake, seriously fuckin hate the "bad rapper lucked into a great album" or "carried by his beats" narrative some people were pushing

obv flockaveli >>> take care fuiud

"i find it a lil hypocritical that the waka stans on here are so confident that drake is an Objectively Poor Rapper. haven't we already established that Technical Rap Acumen means nothing?"

your assumption about how we describe what makes a rapper 'good' is misguided. waka's rapping is much more enjoyable to listen to than Drake's, yes

i mean, just seconds before you posted that i wrote a prob i have w/ his rapping that isn't a problem waka has ever really had

cecilparks | Posted at 2:28pm

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.

I’m starting to think Stereogum targets 12 to 15 year olds.
Maybe I should just avoid AotW posts in general.

Reply

tom | Posted at 2:33pm

Damn, you cracked our code. 12-year-olds love reading 1200-word think-pieces about emotive rap music

u mad?

waka sounds good on his beats, drake sounds bad on any beat.