On Views

I find hot takes quite difficult. While I try to be a pretty open-minded music listener, I owe a significant debt to tastemakers and public discourse. Maybe five years ago, I began to delve into music that was cool and good, expanding my horizons and refining my taste. In this phase of discovery, you don’t really stop to question the respected authorities on what is cool and good, and you don’t tend to look for diamonds in the rough – those widely ridiculed songs that you can’t help but enjoy. Now, when I comb through my music library, I notice a lack of music that I innocently, cheesily admire, independent of what Pitchfork or Fantano (I’m pretty much over that phase) might have to say about it. This means that I don’t have many go-to albums for which I can say “hot take: I actually like this and if you don’t agree with me you’re wrong”. Anyway, I do have one persistent hot take and I would like to share it. It is that Views, Drake's massive 2016 release, can be trimmed down to a lean release that comfortably ranks as his best collection. My revised tracklist is as follows:

Keep The Family Close

9

Hype

Still Here

Redemption

Childs Play

Hotline Bling

Feel No Ways

Controlla

One Dance

Fire & Desire

Weston Road Flows

49 minutes of heat, its threaded songs soundtracking the icy impenetrability of a Toronto winter melting into a glorious, relaxed, global summer. Mind you, this is not what we received back in 2016, that auspicious year for rap: we instead got a bloated, misunderstood 21-track event.

I think a really central element behind Views' lukewarm reception upon release was Drake's full committal to his mean streak. Drake had always been willing to take shots in public, to be rude and to take up all the space in the room, but Views felt like the first time he presented himself as openly petty, even juvenile. Sure, Nothing Was The Same dropped its fair share of exes' names and dirty laundry, but in adopting a direct, confrontational approach to relationship drama, Drake placed himself equally in the firing line. Views just found Drake lobbing grenades from behind a translucent curtain:

“You're supposed to put your pride aside and ride for me / Guess it wasn't time / And of course you went and chose a side that wasn't mine” - Keep The Family Close

"I'm not unrealistic with none of my women / I tell them if they ain't with it then let's just forget it / Relationships slowing me down, they slow down the vision" - Redemption

"Mama is a saint, yeah she raised me real good / All because of her I don't do you like I should / Don't make me take you back to the hood" - Childs Play

So, why then is Views actually special, and why do these bitter tracks make the excellent final cut? I think it helps to lean in to the toxicity. In 2023, the sweetness with which Drake burst onto the scene has basically eroded. He’s not making songs like ‘Best I Ever Had’ anymore, although he’s presumably still capable of a music video like that one. Drake’s identity today is more calculated and self-aggrandizing, and Views encapsulates that identity with remarkable clarity. People talk about Take Care as the Drake album to end all Drake albums, but I feel like the guy he presents on that album is a very 2011 edition of Drake. He was still on the come-up at that time, and the album sounds ambitious and a little rough around the edges, fundamentally quite different from his assured, occasionally directionless attitude on Views. And how better to describe our current iteration of Drake than assured and directionless? All of this sounds like a slight, but it really isn’t. Views is important because it is the closest representation of Drake’s gargantuan celebrity and his stunted emotional development that we have. It has an ugliness and a rawness hidden below its polished surface that is genuinely compelling.

Another, much more immediate reason why Views works is because it contains some of Drake's most essential material: the dancehall, Hotline Bling, Feel No Ways, etc. The release of 'One Dance' remains Drake's commerical pinnacle - for good reason - and I don't think another Drake project has matched the kind of ubiquitous joy that accompanied Views' release. Personally, I'll always have a soft spot for 'Hype' and 'Pop Style' due to the hours of 2K17 play that they soundtracked, even if the latter has aged a little less gracefully. Don't forget how inescapable 'Too Good' and 'Work' were in 2016 either. The album might not showcase Drake's very best rapping (If You're Reading This probably holds that crown) but it is certainly home to his finest pop songs (with the exception of ‘Nice For What’).

The problem, as it always has been, is that Views is just too much. It's too long, too heavy, too inconsistent. Amped-up cuts like '9' and 'Still Here' are arbitrarily separated in the tracklist, causing the energy to fluctuate violently. Quiet, meditative gems like 'Redemption' and 'Fire & Desire' are neutered by too many aimless, uneventful minutes. This edited version does away with the album's excesses while retaining its magic. The string-backed grandeur of 'Keep The Family Close' - which has always been exquisite - gives way to a dark, grimy trap suite before the album blooms with warmth and dynamism.

In this context, Views can finally breathe. Drake's self-seriousness is still very much present but far more palatable with an abridged runtime and improved track sequencing. As the edited album shifts audibly from winter into summer, his cynicism is metered by a much-needed levity and vibrancy. It actually allows you to appreciate how committed Drake is to his pettiness, which is presented with all the high drama of a feature film. The Cheesecake Factory fight on the Jersey club-adjacent 'Childs Play' is as vivid and ridiculous as a Succession family meeting. It fades perfectly into 'Hotline Bling', where Drake's late night sulking turns charmingly goofy against a tropical house backdrop.

Crucially, the Views edit preserves two of the most important songs on the album. 'Controlla' finds a home in the colourful second half because it is one of the most beautiful things Drake has ever done. It is a gorgeous slice of dancehall, with wistful chords set to a loping, unhurried tempo, and Drake goes full patois for it. The vernacular sounds a little forced, but the way he contorts his voice around the central melody is hypnotic and infectious and utterly impressive. Every note choice is perfect. And Drake's ultimate conclusion is wryly, movingly heartfelt:

"But when it comes to you, you / I think I'd lie for you / I think I'd die for you / Do things when you want me to"

'Weston Road Flows' feels natural as an album closer. Drake likes to end his albums with a freestyled, state-of-OVO update, and 'Weston Road Flows' is one of the best in that category. The beat prominently samples 'Mary's Joint' and it just oooooozes with yearning. He sounds defiant and a little uncertain, a fitting way for Views to end: Drake's frosty demeanour brushing up against sumptuous, warm production.

Music streaming is a tricky sort of beast, an intimately capitalistic platform that tends to shaft artists and make exorbitant riches for tech bros. Still, it has offered listeners an extraordinary amount of agency over the music they consume. The reality of streaming is that you, as listener, have the ability to edit albums like this and essentially take matters into your own hands. It is entirely possible that this revised, streamlined version of Views could become a popular way to listen to the record, independent of Drake's intention. Maybe that excites you; maybe it terrifies you. It brings up an important conversation about the need to protect artists, but that's not really the point of this essay. In the end, Drake is a figure who I find eternally fascinating and I just think that I have found a better way to listen to Views. If you feel at all the same way, I genuinely encourage you to try listening to this cut of the album.

Sam Gollings

28 August 2023