Author: DC
Word count: 1024
The majority of albums that top the charts now, as has always been the case, are relatively straightforward affairs. They are, for the most part, fairly down-the-line representations of one of the major musical genres – mainstream rock, country, pop and hip hop / r’n b. Since record sales have declined and thus the number of albums you need to shift to number 1 has dropped off precipitously (if you’d suggested four years ago that you’d have number one albums selling fewer than 100,000 copies the execs of Behemoth Recording Industries would have laughed you out of their lavishly-decorated boardroom), you now get the occasionally strange pick. An indie rock upstart getting their die-hard fans out in week one. A comeback album by an ageing nostalgia act. But for the most part the rule still applies.
The rule seems to operate within genres as well, as most notably within hip-hop. In the last 10 years, with the exception of some of Kanye West’s more experimental moments and some of the early-90s blockbusters that managed to combine huge sales with quirky creative statements (listen to Illmatic now, and you’ll be surprised by how odd it is), the hip-hop records that have sold huge have conformed to a formula. A mix of hood tracks and party beats, one huge pop jam, repeat to finish. Look at the failure of many of the backpackers or underground kings to penetrate the higher reaches of the charts. The reliance on using existing beats to test lyrics via freestyling, and the periodic dominance of top producers with their own styles have made it hard for original sounds to break through.
That’s what makes it so unusual that hot property Drake saw his debut full-length major label LP go straight into the charts at number one, before he was unseated in his second week by sales titan Eminem. Drake and his producers have curated a vibe that, while drawing on recent touchstones like Kanye West’s “808s and Heartbreak”, is unique and distinctive. A minimalist sonic palate, 808 rattles, dreamy synth washes drawn from indie rock and a reliance on singing and talk-rapping rather than all-out flowing mark him out. What’s even more surprising is that he seemed to arrive at this sound early on in his career, that it seems fully formed even in the pinnacle tracks of his early releases (listen to “Houstatlantavegas” and “Baby, You’re The Best” from his So Far Gone EP). Even his limitations as a lyricist and his as yet relatively underdeveloped rhythmic sense marked him out as something a bit different from the polished wit-slinging wordsmiths in the T.I. vein that have come to the fore in hip-hop.
However, this originality could be a double-edged sword for the man who, regrettably, really really wants us to call him ‘Drizzy’. While listening to a few songs in his style sound originally, too many in that style put together tend to underwhelm, regardless of how good the individual tracks are. 5 minutes of minimalism is a refreshing palate cleanser after you’ve feasted on big beats, but 30 minutes tends to have a soporific effect on you. The key thing that Drake will have to master, as most other innovative creators have, is how to take your basic sound and build on it, innovate around it, so that you retain the distinctive core but retain interest.
You can see this very clearly on Drake’s chart-topping new record “Thank Me Later”. The album is a genuine mixed bag, with some fantastic high points and a reasonable amount of filler. The songs broadly fall into 3 categories. There are some very good songs in what we can now legitimately start to call the characteristic Drake style. The album opener “Fireworks” and another early track “The Resistance” just flat out work, they throw in all the usual Drake ingredients but still sound fresh. Then you have the filler tracks that repeat the formula of the more winning numbers but somehow fall flat due to weaker hooks, less interest textures or simply a lack of that magic hook or perfect one-liner that lodges in your head. Tracks like “Show Me A Good Time” and even the Lil’ Wayne-starring “Miss Me” fall into this category, coming and going unmemorably.
If they were the only styles of track on the album you’d be a bit concerned about the potential longevity of the Drizzy career. However, most intriguingly and promisingly for the Canadian, there are some tracks that have something a little extra. Tracks that throw in new ingredients while still being recognizably the work of the particular artists, and it is these tracks that elevate the album from merely acceptable to very good. The best song is the long r ‘n b jam “Shut It Down”, a genuine duet with ferociously hot soul man The-Dream. The song takes the standard orchestration of almost every Drake song but smartly and deftly layers on new elements like electric piano, some slashing electric guitar, and towards the end of the song a digital bitstorm of backing vocals, synth strings and effects. It all sounds organic and complementary, not over-egged but more substantial that his usual. Lyrically and vocally The-Dream challenges Drake as well, forcing him to push the limits of his singing voice, and encouraging him to concentrate his raps into brief bursts, mitigating Drake’s tendency to ramble rather than be concise.
The other stand-out song is another collaboration, the smouldering “Light Up” with Brooklyn kingpin Jay-Z. The song is almost exactly the opposite of “Shut It Down”. It is lean and spare where that song is ornate, menacing and terrifying where “Shut It Down” is enticingly sexual. The staccato flows of the two rappers reverb around with an echo chamber effect, lending the song a street-corner-at-2am vibe that is hard to capture and unforgettable once you’ve heard it. It’s a diversion, but still somehow bears the Drake trademark – and that’s what is most encouraging about it. It’s what is most encouraging about Drake’s album as a whole – that it contains these moments of relative experimental exploration, while still establishing a core sound that Drake can build on .
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