Why not watch one of the fake videos for this, while you’re at it?
[Video][Website]
[3.78]
Hannah Jocelyn: Only Drake could arguably invent a whole sub-genre of R&B music, render it inescapable, and then create its own Manborg-style pastiche two years later. It’s actually funny hearing “Fake Love” again after “Drinkin’ Too Much,” because it’s clear that while people across genres continue to borrow from “Marvin’s Room,” not even Drake is taking this whole stream-of-pettiness shtick seriously anymore. Like “Hotline Bling” offspring “1 Night,” this trades in being ridiculously dumb and shouty, with even the requisite cha-cha beat and synth line played for laughs. The opening line is literally “I’ve been down so long it look like up to me” right after one of the best years of his career, so it’s difficult to think he actually means what he’s warbling. Just as with Manborg, Drake takes the tropes of his genre and intentionally exaggerates them to so-bad-its-good territory, and the results are kind of magnificent.
[7]
Alfred Soto: “I don’t trust a word you saaay” — mmm tell me more.
[1]
Micha Cavaseno: Is the serpent biting its own tail now? As I’ve alluded to in earlier Drakk reviews, “YRN” begat “Hotline Bling” more succinctly than “Cha-Cha,” but it was “Hotline” that led to “Pick Up The Phone” and now with the Travis Scott-like reverb on his samples you get the feeling that Aubrey is getting caught up in the one-upsmanship and forgetting his greatest advantage is his ability to make slight stylistic pivots on his sound to keep the formula refreshed. Also his continued attempts at toying with the middle register to sound like a lesser PartyNextDoor seem particularly lost. “Fake Love” is treading the same waters, which is what Drakk does best in his anodyne way.
[4]
Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: A Drake song that wears its Drake-isms so proudly (Translation: Another Drake song where Drake plays the victim while humble-bragging) is always fun to listen, even if we know we’ll grow tired of it by the fourth or fifth time.
[5]
Ryo Miyauchi: The glassy beat clinks gorgeously with this slightly tipsy swing. It deserves more from the Boy, who fills it with a mere placeholder of an idea. A classic Drake-ism, the chorus props a good banner to represent whatever your personal problem of the week might be. But with his verse dancing around the root of his issue, “Fake Love” seems to exist so the chorus won’t go to waste.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: Drake’s lamenting of the “fake love” he feels from people cozying up to him on account of his success basically says “I have too much free time,” “I have too much money,” and, in spite of these, “I have too many people who relate to me.” He makes this whinge listenable, somehow.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: Oh, poor Drake, everyone’s fake to him. It must be difficult being a multimillionaire who’s so misunderstood. That must be why he makes so many middling tracks, because he’s just so sad, or something. Srsly, Aubrey, STFU.
[2]
Tim de Reuse: Drake provides no interesting reflection on the social positions his fame puts him in, no emotion on display more complicated than irritation, no wordplay more clever than the first line’s just-warmer-than-lukewarm “I been down so long it look like up to me.” I can’t really see any of these complaints as relatable and can’t say there’s enough confidence in the delivery to really impress, so I have to wonder: what was the intent, here? Self-pity? Just wanted to rant? You could’ve expressed the entirety of this song with more punch inside of a single tweet — didn’t need to stretch it out for three minutes to be sure we got the message.
[2]
Katie Gill: How many “oh woe is me, it is so very sad to be Drake” songs do we really need? I don’t know what tone he was shooting for, but I doubt it was where he ended up: whiny.
[3]