By Short-T
I should be more enthusiastic about this release, but I’m not. I watched the short film, Jungle before I went to work Thursday and was not really impressed. When I came home 8 hours later, Twitter was in an uproar over the surprise release. I didn’t feel left out of the cool kids’ conversation, “I’ll hear it, when I hear it” was my attitude after learning it was an iTunes only release. Finally, I heard it and I’m only disappointed that the song everyone was talking about with “Running through the six with my woes…” is not more up-tempo, my feelings toward the rest of the tracklist is numb.
The songs don’t stand out that much to me. It’s been a week and if you played a random song from the project, there’s a small chance that I could guess the name correctly. “You and The 6,” “6PM In New York,” “Star 67,” “Energy,” “Know Yourself,” and “Preach” get repeat listens. I appreciate “Used To” for what it is, a record that breaks up the monotony. There are a couple of songs present that sound too similar to each other, this is why Take Care is my least favorite Drake album.
It’s a good project, but it ain’t Views From The 6, which I am anticipating heavily. This was just the teaser trailer, not even a full preview. Besides “6PM In New York” and “Energy” I didn’t get too many amazing lyrical performances. There were personal moments from “Star 67,” “Know Yourself,” and “You and the 6,” but it just felt like something was missing. Drake’s main collaborator, 40, is only found in the production credits on 4 records. If “Jungle” isn’t played in the strip club, $2 Tuesdays are dead to me. This is “look strippers in the eyes and wonder what they go home to when they leave work” music. S/O to Illmind, Wondagurl, and PartyNextDoor for their first time placements on a Drake album. Also, Boi-1da and Vinylz deserve more credit for their production, not only for this album. I’m enjoying a couple of the songs, but not satisfied with this release.
