VIEWS Album Review

VIEWS+Album+Review

Maggie Lewis, Writer

Talk of Drake’s album “Views From The 6” has been circulating for more than a year. After dropping “Nothing Was The Same” in 2013 and then having multiple songs leaked online, people were anticipating this new album sooner than expected, but it never came. After releasing “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late” and then later collaborating on an album with Future, there was still no “Views from the 6”, although talk of the album had been hinted on many songs.

But then, at the beginning of April, Drake announced via Twitter that the album was coming April 29, and the hype began. He took “From The 6” off of the album title to make it less Toronto-based, simply turning it into “Views”. When the album came out last Friday, I listened to it right away.

Overall, I liked Views. It definitely sounds like previous Drake albums: plenty of emotion (the type of music you’d listen to if your girlfriend/boyfriend just dumped you, and you didn’t know what to do with your life anymore), adrenalized tracks and quality features. I like “album Drake”, so I have an overall positive opinion about it.

The content is good. The album is mixed very, very well. Producers like Noah “40” Shebib and Jordan Ullman contributed to its stellar production. There’s a range of different types of songs. Drake’s versatility as an artist is what makes the album as good as it is.

Songs like “Hype”, “Still Here” and “Grammys” are intense anthems, modeling most of the songs off of “If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late”. “Controlla”, “One Dance”, “Too Good” and the all-too-familiar “Hotline Bling” are upbeat and easy to dance to. Then, there’s “Fire & Desire” and “Redemption” that give off more of a R&B mood that will put anyone in the feels, much like his 2011 album “Take Care”.

With a quality mix of features on “Views”, Drake not only offers a unique set of artists to listen to like PARTYNEXTDOOR, Pimp C, dvsn and Rihanna, but they all compliment each other and give off similar vibes. They bring their own personalities to the songs and make them more dynamic.

With the exception of Future, these artists make the songs they are featured on better and exciting. This was most impressive to me. Personally, I am not a fan of Future because his verses are repetitive and sound the same in every song. I think his verse on the song “Grammys” ruined it.

My favorites on “Views” are “Fire & Desire”, “Redemption”, “Still Here”, “Weston Road Flows” and “With You”.