If you’re reading this, it’s much appreciated!

[Video][Website]
[3.25]

Alfred Soto: I guess it was about time in the artist’s career to complain about mortgages, bitches asking for the WiFi code, enemies, rising sea levels, Common Core, Hillary Clinton’s emails, and “Bibi” Netanyahu’s address to Congress. Each verse is dumber than a bag of dead snails, Drake’s holding a note and letting it fade an irritant, and no one would’ve noticed this mixtape track if some kid from the neighborhood stuck it in Soundcloud.
[3]

Jonathan Bradley: When we covered “Worst Behavior,” I said “a resentful Drake with a hate-hardened heart is far more interesting than one begging to be loved,” and “Energy” doubles down on that dictum. The production is thin and cheap — thuddy drums and a looped bar of brooding piano — and Aubrey at his grumpiest, curling his lip at visitors who ask for his wi-fi password and a multitude of unnamed enemies whose company he has to act like he likes. (The rejoinder, “my acting days are over: fuck them niggas for life” is the high point of the track.) Success has shrunk our correspondent’s worldview, and his thoughts, like those of the legally-restrained compatriots whose plight gets a shout-out here, don’t leave Canada: the 6 God has returned from the strip clubs of Houstatlantavegas to spend his time turning over specific streets and neighborhoods in eastern Toronto. The austerity, whether borne of artistic design or contractual obligation, pushes “Energy” into cramped and irritable territory, and even if Drake is better suited to extravagance, his single-mindedness here is absorbing.
[6]

Anthony Easton: His flow is improving, and the production of this is so minimal (and I don’t mean that as a euphemism for plodding) that this could come across as paranoid. It doesn’t; the whole album comes across as anhedonic. It’s not quite ego-laden, though it talks about strippers and money — that anhedonia, so depressed, makes me think about how much I love Toronto, and how much Toronto breaks my heart. It’s the hangover from the meltdown of the Ford years. 
[9]

Micha Cavaseno: Drakula’s Castle is too painful for me to endure anymore; initially it was all too logical for him to exist. The same way Singles made a perfect imitation grunge guy out of Matt Dillon, Aubrey Graham was the perfect teen-pop dilution of Wayne and Kanye. Over time, he’s enforced it with strategic alliances, married to his own signature overproduced sound, which curiously he’s shaved down to a more basic thudding in the core. Yet in 2015, Drake is no longer settling for empty Screw tributes or cheesy Migos bites… He’s now hijacking from grime, from dancehall, from Young Thug & YG (specifically here). If You’re Reading This… is effectively the Pigeons and Planes archive of the past year, but while Drake’s always been derivative, he’s only gotten hollower. His threats are meaningless, his posturing bought through the influence of others. Yes, he’s beating his chest, but as a wise man once said, it’s just to hear the echo. Because Drake is a heartless kid, all hollow compartments.
[0]

Will Adams: Sorry to hear that, dude, that sucks.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: icona_pop_i_dont_care_soundboard.wav
[1]

Brad Shoup: It was a hell of a thing listening to this tape when it dropped — tweets loading by the gross, full of artwork insta-parodies and lines that landed hard and a lot of caps. People love Drake, and don’t believe it when he tells you otherwise. He holds his words past tolerability, he drags the earth with his hook, and yet he never sounds tired. Maybe he’s not boasting, maybe he sees himself as a conduit for everyone getting drained on the daily. But for me, Drake comes off the most convincing on “Madonna,” and he’s falling asleep behind the wheel. Here, it’s the track’s job, moseying through an endless inky lake.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: On the plus side of the ledger, the piano is mildly reminiscent of my memories of mournful “bad ending” music from 90s video games, and I giggled at him saying his acting days were over. On the downside, the world doesn’t need a rallying cry for a hypothetical “#top1percentproblems” hashtag.
[1]