A Review: For All The Dogs
06 Oct 2023disclaimer: i am a drake stan
trigger warnings: Drake, album
TLDR
Not a bad album. I’ll repeat that again. Not a bad album.
Obviously, don’t expect another Nothing Was The Same and Take Care to get dropped by the 6 God, but don’t dismiss another solid album either. The album carries the same angry tone from Drizzy’s previous Her Loss album with a fair share of emotional tracks as well. Does it sound as reflective as his past works? No. Is it passable? More than so.
Lack of Changes
That being said, the album doesn’t come with a whole lot of changes. His style of complaining, crooning, denigrating, and out-of-pocket lyrics haven’t gone anywhere. It just feels like a natural extension of the angry tones on Her Loss with the perceived absurdity/memery of Certified Lover Boy. Personally, I find nothing wrong with sticking to one what knows, but the internet seems to have higher standards for him. Granted, he is in the top 3 (conservatively top 7) rappers of all time.
In particular, Drake got a lot of static for his use of features on this album. There’s no shortage of criticism that these days, regardless of whether it’s Lil Baby, SZA, J. Cole, or Yeat, Drake gets washed up with his features. While there may be some truth in that, I feel like that’s heavily overexaggerated and largely just a function of disagreements of with Drake’s style. Specifically his “zoned out” feel that makes him seem like he doesn’t want to be in a studio.
Defending the Sound (?)
Has nobody ever picked up that maybe he does this intentionally or that this frankly fits his lyrics more? Drake doesn’t need to be here. He doesn’t need to compete with current rap forerunners like Yeat, Lil Baby, or whoever else – he’s truly in a league of his own, rivaling widely recognized artists like Taylor Swift. As he said on First Person Shooter, he’s just short of Michael (Jordan). Not to mention that Drake quite literally has been doing this for perhaps too long? Few rappers are able to maintain prevalence for a couple of years, let alone decades. It should come as no surprise then that he needs a break.
A Note On Consistency
Drake is consistent in two ways: 1) creating music that sounds the same and 2) doing #1 over years. Few artists have maintained his consistency as he has done. Is this a good excuse for a B music-point average, compared to other artists with higher peaks? I would say it’s not entirely devoid of merit, but not to be overly celebrated either.
Of course, ideally Drake would be consistent in just creating sounds with a new song. But that’s not realistic.
And on an ending note, that drawing may have been his best album cover.