After multiple postponements of its release, I open my phone to Drake finally dropping “For All the Dogs,” his eighth album, on Oct. 6. I quickly put in my AirPods and press play, and my smile immediately lowers. After this build of anticipation from the release being pushed back so many times, the final, 23-track, 90-minute product was wildly disappointing. Despite features from some of the hip-hop industry’s biggest artists and his 5-year-old son Adonis, this album was mediocre at best.
The first track, “Virginia Beach,” gave false hope for the quality of the rest of the album. With Frank Ocean’s hypnotizing vocals and a 2016 “Views” style, this song gives a taste of what Drake is truly capable of producing. The song opens with an instrumental that sounds like what I can only describe as how a sunrise looks. Frank Ocean begins singing “I bet your mother would be proud of you” in a melody that blends romantically with the track. Then Drake comes in with his verse over Frank Ocean’s vocals, which creates a perfect harmony that stays true to both Frank’s and Drake’s unique styles. This song was so irresistibly beautiful, it only made me more disappointed that the rest of the album fell so short.
Understandably after this song, I was ready for more. The second track, “Amen” (featuring Teezo Touchdown), plays, and I think “Okay, this was just a dud, most albums have one bad song.” But then the third and fourth track play and I began to go into denial. “Amen,” “Fear of Heights” and “Daylight” all feel like one big run-on sentence that has absolutely no meaning. These songs are just so flavorless and forgettable. At the end of “Daylight,” Drake harshly cuts to Adonis rambling on about nothing. Conceptually, I think it is a unique and sentimental idea to have his son featured in his song, however, it was executed terribly. Adonis only rhymes words with themselves and repeats the same thing over and over stumbling on the beat, making it extremely difficult to listen to.
Thankfully, next comes “First Person Shooter” featuring J. Cole and “IDGAF” featuring Yeat, which breaks up the streak of nothingburger songs, potentially making this album salvageable. Their features almost entirely carried both of these songs. Yeat and J. Cole should entirely be credited for these songs and their success. The beautiful, spacious intro to “IDGAF” brought a glimmer of hope back into my eyes for this album. Unfortunately, for the remainder of this album, I was only met with disappointment. Drake seems as though he is running away from the beat, filling his songs with meaningless babble.
Track 16, “All the Parties” featuring Chief Keef, can only be described as goofy. I laughed out loud at how terrible this song was. Not only does Drake once again mumble on with no point, but he also features Chief Keef, whose verse had to be a cruel joke. As if this wasn’t enough, the song ends with George Clinton’s words, single-handedly killing this album, digging its grave and burying it. This song was so unnecessarily horrible that it made me ashamed to call myself a Drake fan.
Overall, Drake’s features on this album, and “Slime You Out” featuring SZA were the only possible saving grace. “For All the Dogs” was just a colossal disappointment, instead of what could’ve been the cherry on top of Drake’s career. Moving forward, Drake has an uphill battle to redeem himself from this garbage fire of an album.
