Views, From The Pandemic.
Did Commercialism Mire The Views’ Acclaim.
“The Pandemic Ruin My Life.” *Breathe In*
How Many Of Us Find Refuge Is That Narrative. Not Peace But reality; Truth. By All Means, It’s the Prevailing Rationale That Covered The Greater Arches for The Past 18 months. How Many Stories Of Lost And Wounds. The Inspiration Behind So Many Articles And other forms Of Editorials. How Many Are Other Stories Unsung?
For Us Who Scurried Through The Uncertainty And Entered This Uncharted Level Of Assuaged Precarity. The 18 Months That Time Has Claimed For Itself, Mostly Faded, Dull Memories Of Lines, Signs And Hackneyed Promotional Phrases Like ‘Small Businesses’; For The Most Part, these Are Sparsely Instrument Of Our new Reality. Unfortunately, This Means We Have Only Moved Incrementally Further Away From Our Viral Companion And Now Grasping The Jubilation Set Aside For Travelers Of Long Journeys Through The Mechanism Of Mass Histeria. Rest Still Remains Unattainable. No Longer Trapped In The Phase Of symptoms And isolation, But Rather recovery—but We’re Still trapped
“The Pandemic Continues to Encumber My Life” *Exhales*
After The Marathon ran In Days and Experienced in Months. The Quote Overhead Was A Mantra. A thought On Replay.
The Expression “Lockdown” Transmogrified From Its Curtained Customary Locale Of Prison Slang And Directly Into The Dreaded Coinage Of Political Parlance for Social Discontentment. The Global Economy Shrink. The Job Market Buckled. Social Upheaval Sprang. Seemingly Arbitrary And Most Certainly, Personal, Restrictions Mounted. Arresting The Fundamental Barrier Of A Presumed “free Society.”
Red Pill Or Blue Pill?
Now There Is A Cerebral Drone Humming Over “The Booster Shot.” Backlash For Those Daring Or Constraining Enough Not to Chorus The Timbre Of “Vaccine, Vaccine, Vaccine.” More and More The Genuineness that The Pandemic Has Afforded So Many Nothing More Than Anxiety And The Consultation Being The Free Time To Mull Over Time Like Some Microscopic Bully “Why Are You Hitting Yourself? Why Are You Hitting Yourself?” It’s a Vicious Cycle.
But Just As Any Bully Gift His Victim, the Power To break Him, In The Form Of Wounds. The Pandemic Also gifted Its caribou with An Instrument; Free Time. For Many, including Myself, “Free Time” Is Merely A Means For Self Cannibalism. The Idea That “it’s OK to do nothing” Is Not OK. Free Time Open The Door For Too Much Self-Loathing, We Social Media And Internet Enthusiasts Are Predisposed too. This “Free Time” Would Come To be An Undoing If Not Properly Store, Disposed And Destroyed. “It’s ingrained in us that busyness is our source of self-esteem.”. Free Time, Social media, and Self-esteem Are For the Most Part “Mutually exclusive.” This unwanted Luxury Would Have engendered To Something Productive.
Sentences Under the Crown Are never Negotiable, Rarely Flexible. If I Couldn’t Exhaust The Free Time Into Something Athletic, Educational or occupational. I Would Turn My Solace To The Only Weapon Of Ease And Entertainment; Music.
Free Time In All Of Its Dour Ideals presents A Recourse. ‘The Obstacle Is The way.” By All Means. Here The Opportunity Disguise as Misfortune. Revisit And Explore Music Otherwise Considered Too Long Or Not Amongst The prescribed Opioids Of My Taste. Music, The Opioid The Masses. The Pandemic The Administrator Of The Masses I Had the Opportunity To Explore The Trap Stylings Of Future and Lil Uzi Vert; Two Artists too “Repetitive’ to hold complete Authority over my focus. I Delighted In Both Artist’s 2020 Releases “High Off Life” And “Eternal Atake,” as Well As Their Popularized Collab “Pluto VS Baby Pluto” “Baby Sasuke. That Naruto.”. I Also Took in Some spins Form Artist Like “Hall And Oates” And “The Beatles.” I felt Jarred By the reality that I Should Have Taken Up On Some Of There Earlier in My Life. Then On, I Pivoted.
The Free Time Spilled on I Began To Wonder what Spins Of Some Of My Familial Artists Who’s Spin I may Have Neglected. When I say Familial, Meaning; Concerning Those Artist I follow religiously. Even They Grow Tedious At Times.
Enter Views. In truth, CLB Brought Me To views, But That’s Neither Here or there. CLB Brings Everybody Back to views.
“They hated on ‘Views’ just like they will [Certified Love Boy], but it’s music to evolve”-Drake
Drizzy Drake. Canadian Actor turned Rapper, “The Boy” As He Referred To Has Become More Than Just A Spin to me. He’s The Model beyond all Of The Light Skin Complications. Drizzy took The Game Base By Base Only In warp Speed. His Success, Particular enviable Yet Distinctively Difficult To replicate. The 4 Time Grammy Award Artist Is The Greatest Act In The Business’s History. Dating back to 2009-10, When Aubrey Launched His Career As Lil Wayne’s Protégé, He’s Racked Up Some 40 Plus Grammy Nominations. A Discography That Rivals Tupac, well Not Tupac More Kanye. But Kanye Is Kanye. And, Of course, More Spins Than The Beatles.
In The Past Decade The “6 gods” Another Moniker Of Drizzy. He Has charted, Released, Bank, And Repeat With Sumptuous Consistency. Certified Lover Boy” Most Recently. “Dark Lane Demos” Before. “Scorpion” Some Time Beyond. With A Name That is Always Bellowing through the Air Ways, it's No wonder It Takes Xanax to Put Him Out Like A Light before the Next Drop.
When You’re an Artist Whose Built A career On The waters Of copious Releases. In An Era Where Streams Trump Sales And Clout Trumps Capital, there is Always Going To Be That Gray Area Where Solid releases Get Voided Into The Wood Work Of Well Your work. Authors Like Stephen King Are Kin In This Regard. His Earlier Works, Like “Carrie,” “Pet Cemetery,” And “IT,” “the Shinning,” As Well As later works Like “11/22/63” or “Under The Dome,” Are Praised, if Not well Regarded And Pronounced. Other Middle Grounds Tales Like “the Dead Zone,” “The Dark Half,” “Fire Starter,” And “Lisey’s Story” Books with Just As Much Zest Are Marginalized. Mostly King Fans Well, Get this Reference. Maybe How Michael Jackson Has About Ten Albums, But we only ever reference That One, Don’t We. Peculiar.
If There Is A Of Drake’s Catalogued That ranks Amongst Underrated And Overlooked, it Has to be His middle Child Views. The Album Simply Known By Its Moniker A “Commercial Success” Would Be Drake’s Forth Ablum, “View.”. Being In The Middle Would Come To Define Views It’s the Most Polarizing In Drake’s Catalogue T Date. Drake Announced the Title Of His Album In August 2014 Via Twitter. NWTS(Nothing Was The Same) Had Finished Making The Rounds for Its 4 Time Platinum Run Before Drizzy Announced The Intent for A New Drop. Upon Announcement The Album was Title “Views for The 6”. An Appellative Composed by A Few of Drake’s Friends --“The 6 is Toronto” For Those Who Don’t Know By Now. The Title, Eventually Shortened To Just “Views” For Vague Reason None Which Had Anything To Do with The Commercial Implications. “I think the announcement was more than just the album title. It was a shift in the city [Toronto] – we saw an opening there. The name took on a life of its own,” According To Drake Himself
Yeah.
What Commercial Implications You Ask. Views Happened to Be Drake’s First Album Released Under The Terms Set In The Exclusive Streaming Deal He Penned With Apple. The Media And Technology Giant would Pay Drake19 million Dollars for Streaming Rights Throughout The First Week of The Albums Release. I’m No Marketing Enthusiast, But Views As A Title Is A lot less Pompous Than Views from The 6. Not To Mention The Potential Backlash With regards To all Of that “6” related Content. In western Society, Six is Not A Number Associated Pleasantry.
The Album Would come In Nearly Two Years Between the Time It Was Announced and The Time It Hit The Shelves or The Web in Late April 2016. It was Longest Time In Between releases For An Artist who prefer To cook Up And Serve. But Drake relished In The Pressure. In The Time Between 2013’s, Nothing was The Same And 2016’s Views. Drake’s Career Became A Melting Pot For Material To Pour into His Music. There Was The impromptu Album “if You’re Reading This It Too Late.”. The Collab Album With Drake And Future “What A Time To Be Alive.” The “Beef” Between He An Meek Mill, The Revelation of Drake’s Ghost Writing Ignominy, which Produced Too Ephemeral Diss Track “Back To Back” And “Charge Up.” Apart From The Beef, Drake Promoted Views With A trailer Video Of Highlights OR Snippets From His trails, His Highlight, His Growth. This Release Was Going to Be A Personal.
“As a kid growing up, I always wondered if my city or even my country would have somebody break into the global scene as a true superstar,” Drake said. “The dream of being an artist like myself and connecting directly with an audience has never been closer and more reachable than right now.”
Views Dropped April 29th, 2016. debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 charts for the week of May 21st, 2016, and remained there for thirteen chart weeks.
Powered By Singles Hot Line Bling which In 2017, he won two Grammy Awards for The hit song, “Pop Style’, “Summer Sixteen,” “Right Hand,” “One Dance,” Dizzy’s first Number 1 as A Lead On. A track. Upon Release, views Became Drizzy Highest Selling record to That date Going six times Platinum.
Production. Of The 81:00 Minute Album Was Handle Primarily By Drake’s Longtime Companion Noah” 40” Shebib. The Album’s lyrical Composition Tackles Some Topics Ranging From Drizzy’s Ambassadorship For The City Of Toronto. He Later Ruminates This Appointment, And The Fame Its engenders. There Are The One-Off Relationship Ballads, Pop Singles, And Club Bangers.
Irrespective of The Production Being Handle By Primarily One Producers, The Album Is a Bit Disjointed. There Is A thematic Traversing As The Album moves Along from Top To bottom. Its Symbolizes The Change In weather In The City Of Toronto. Harsh Winters and Coveted Summers. I Believe There Are Only Two Seasons In Canada.
“Views give us a bit of all the things we enjoy. “With You” is a fun summer song, perfect to drive to. “Fire & Desire” is groovy. “Redemption” and “Still Here” give us classic aggrieved Drake.”
The Volume Of Tracks And their Versatility Is One Of the Elements Drizzy Championed Upon The Album’s Release. Fan Was Being Grace With All Level of The Artist. “Tunes” for The Summer and “tunes” For The Year. For A Singing Rapper, Versatility Is some A Calling card, So to Say. Still The Album Motions From Track to Track In a Mostly Monotone manner—Though, Word Is Shouldn’t Judge.
No Matter the Musical Styling, it is Difficult To Listen To One Artist. Preach on. The Album Aestheticized Seasonal Structure Gets Lost in the Void Of weak Lyrics And Some “Self-Absorption.” Drizzy Stated matter-of-factly, “It all directly has to do with me or else I can’t make the music.” But As A Drake Fan, Most Of This Is Axiomatic. He’s Never Been An Artist, Performer, Promoter Short On Ego And After Weathering The Storm That Preceded Views—Let Be Honest Only A Handful of Artist Could Survive A Ghost Writing Scandal A Still Sale—Some Vanity Is Warranted. There is also The Undertone Misogyny
“Don’t Make Me Give You Back To The Hood.” Drake exclaims On The Song “Child’s Play” As he refers To a Lady friend He Having trouble Influencing. For An Artist of Such Magnitude, As Drake Has Acknowledge, god Boy Hasn’t Done Much To Protect His Image. I guess When You Sell out Stock And Tour Image Is Of Marginal Consequence.
Upon Released Views Receive “Lukewarm Reviews from Critics. Pitchfork gave the Album 6.8/10. They are In House Music Critic Stating That The Album Felt “Monotone” And “claustrophobic.” “VIEWS is what happens when venting turns into whining.” Claustrophobic Is Such A Underrated Epithet. The Song On This Album Are So Cramp together, But They are Not trying To Get In Each other's way. But In All, some Innovations Justified Giving The Album A Listen. Others Critic Pegged Views As “too long and stubbornly low energy” On The Other Spectrum Views Was for Some Critics “Deeply Beautiful” And To Some Effect Groundbreaking.
Most Critics Tend To Agree That The Album was Too Long. The Glutton of Its Best Songs Lies in The Middle. That Streak In Between That Runs From “Hype” To Maybe “Childs Play” In My Opinion. But Boredom Could Set In By The Time Those Tracks Awakened. I’m Not Entirely Sure If One Hour Plus of Music Is what Drizzy Intended when He Embarked On the Views Endeavor.
Several Leaks struck Around the Time Of Its Inception Views. After Drake Initial Announced the Album Would Be Dropping Spring 2015, “We already have Spring 2015 poppin’ / PND droppin’… not to mention, me droppin’.”
The Timeline Between Announcement And Achievement is Fairly Dense.
Drake Reveals he And 40 Have completed Two Songs with a Release Date Suspected To be Lying In Wait. Of course, it Was An improvement To The 0 Tracks Drizzy Had Prepared When He Announced The Album. There Was the Beef. Then Drizzy Got Back To That; Views. The Two Other Projects. The Instagram teasers. The Ping-pong Table. 40 Hints That work is in Progress But Gives No TimeLine. “We’re just really getting back to basics… Just letting it happen naturally.” A Promotional, “The 6 Is Watching.”. Somewhere in All Of This, The Apple Deal is Announced. A tease By 40. A bully By boi-1da. Promotional. More Instagram. A Trailer. More Billboards. More Promotional. Drake Performs One Dance. One Dance is A Success. The Album art. The CN Tower. The tracklist. The Name Change Written in Stone. Then The release.
The Pandemic Afforded Fan s, I.e., (Me) A Capacious amount Of free Time.
In A Curious Case Of Art Reflecting Life. Views Play Out In Many ways As the Process It Took To Make The record happen. Cold Dismissive Start. At Times Puzzling And Labored. Excited At its Core. Before Gradually Fading.
As We Wrap up, There Are Two Points of emphasis. The Apple deal. Unprecedented To Some Degree for It Time. Nineteen Million Meant Drizzy Had more Than His Unusually Plate Full of appearances and Performances To Fulfill. Streaming Music As A Full time Means As Artistic Consumption was Still In Its Embryotic Phase. For Hip-Hop Drake Would Lead The way For The Artform Into the Future. Drake Is No Stranger To Pressure And is Delighted In the Opportunities Gifted To Him On this Occasion. But One Must Assert Extenuating circumstances Pour Themselves Into the Project. Here’s A Poignant Quote, A Matter Of A Fact.
“I love pressure! I’m always thinking, how do I stop what I’ve done? How do I make this thing stronger? I ask myself, ‘Why does Adele’s album go diamond, and how do I do that? How do I create art that makes minds stretch further?’”
It's One Thing To Be Introverted It's Another Thing To be In Ones’ Head. Obsessing Over OnesOnes’ Experiences And Loosely Ones’ Impact. Drake Never Seems To Stray Too far from Himself and, Any “Drakism” Serves AsIncidencee To That Fact. “I’m way Too good To you. You Take My Love For Granted.” His Closely Knitted Circle Of “friends” And Associates Could Lead to The deduction That Drake is A Man Struggling with Hubris Syndrome: An exaggerated pride, overwhelming self-confidence, and contempt for others. Struggling Is A Poor Choice Of Word. True egos Give Little Light for Plight. The Contempt for Others Is No Question.
“I’m Looking At You Guys First Week Numbers Like What Are Those?”. Hilarious? Yes. Contemptuous? Yes.
The Album’s Cover Art Serves Embellishes This Matter even further. Drake Is A Figure Posted Up On the CN Tower A, a Distinctively High and Prominent Point in His City’s Lore And Social mores. There Few If Any Moments In Artistic History That Are Greater Displays Of Grandiosity Than That.
Nevertheless, Drake Remained an Artist of Some Redeeming Moments. Songs Like “Western Road Flows.” The Introductory Bars Distill The Voice Of A Drake A Time Before We Knew The Drake We Know if We Know Him At All. “Weston Road Flows, I did this shit for my nigga Renny Back when we couldn’t buy pizza cause we were down to pennies.” There Is a Hum Of Pensive Reflection. As If To Say Perhaps, How can You Hate Me? Look what I Have Made Of Myself. “My mother was very sick. We were very poor like broke.” Drake Explains the Lyrics. There Is A Hint Of Humility There, If Not faint.
By The Time We reached To The Next track, ironically Named “redemption,” It's All Lost.
“Why would I say all these things to have you feelin’ away?
Why would I tell you I’m 30 away if I’m not on the way?
Why do I settle for women that force me to pick up the pieces?
Why do I want an independent woman?
To feel like she needs me. —I lost my way.”
There Is Enough “I’s” In This One Stanza to rival Satan’s Declarations from The Passage In Isaiah 14:13-14. I’m Not Intimating anything Here. This Section All boils Down To My Favorite Record On This Record, “Faithful.”
Finally. A Note from The Above Quote, The One About Pressure. Drake Mentions Adele. The British Starlet. The Name Drop Should Not Go Overlooked. In 2021 the Two Of our Generation Largest Figures In Music Transform The 2021 Music terrain. With the Announcement And High anticipated Releases, Adele’s Is Still On The Horizon As of This Writing. In 2015 Things Were A Bit Different.
Both Artists Were Hotly Anticipated, But Adele, “Hello” And eventually “25” Dwarf All of Drake’s Singles, And Ultimately Stymied His Momentum. As stated, “25” went Diamond, 17.4 million Sold In A Year. Adele also holds the title for the fastest-selling album of all time. She took home six Grammys That Year. For One Album. Adele Put on for Her Home, The U.K. Undoubtably Drake Took Notice, Then And Now.
In 2021.
He Dropped CLB Ahead of 30.
