Thinking we should just add a word filter to insert that “Fucking” every time…
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[3.71]
Anthony Easton: Even when he’s bragging about how completely awesome he is, Drake sounds like a whiny asshole.
[4]
Alfred Soto: If I were Kanye, I’d watch my step: this Drake track is the most execrable kind of indie catatonia stereotype disguised as R&B. The damn thing even sounds like a demo; imagine an acoustic guitar substituting for the keyboard. Self-regard has rarely sounded this vacuous.
[3]
Al Shipley: As much as I hated “Over,” its spoiled whining at least had a little bit of a barbed edge to it. This, like “I’m On One,” is just more of Aubrey trying to get into asshole mode but letting his true soft-hands nice guy self take over as he continues to say “I apologize” more than any rapper in history. Meanwhile, his producer Boi-1da manages to top himself with even more egregious hi-hat programming than on “Forever.”
[3]
Brad Shoup: The synth strings and toots promise import that he just won’t deliver and beg for a refrain that he can’t provide. Seriously, dude needs to contract out his choruses; he hasn’t had a knockout since “Best I Ever Had”. If Drake’s flow was translated into Morse code it’d probably read “eeeeeeeeeeeee”. He raps like he’s reading ransom demands at gunpoint. His accusations are vague; the drama dubious. “Soap opera rappers” indeed.
[4]
Josh Love: The time is nigh for Drake to deliver a follow-up to his worldbeating debut, Thank Me Later. No points for correctly guessing that he handles the prospect of a sophomore slump the same way he’s handled every damn thing else in his career to date — with a combination of intense self-absorption, bottom-line braggadocio, and crippling insecurity. “Headlines” doesn’t even offer any real hook or musical payoff as compensation for sitting through his latest bout of navel-gazing, making it not the slightest bit more entertaining than reading the most banal of celebrity tweets.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: Fucking Drake’s so convinced we care about his life that he forgot to write a chorus or more than one synth line. If this were a headline, it’d be a polysyllabic 16-pointer on the zoning board.
[4]
Jer Fairall: As possibly the Jukebox’s only Flippin’ Drake fan, I’m more than a little bummed at my cool responses to his recent singles, but while this one is less lyrically clumsy than “Marvin’s Room,” it is stranded in a mid-tempo that holds it back from gathering the momentum of his faster tracks or easing into the prettiness of his quieter ones. I guess there might be some comfort to be taken in the fact that Thank Me Later‘s singles weren’t its best tracks anyway.
[6]