Drake, the Toronto artist dropped his eighth album ‘For All the Dogs’ on Friday October 6th. The 23-track album was announced September 6th and set to drop September 22nd but was pushed back two weeks so he could make up for the shows he canceled on his ‘It’s All A Blur’ tour.
While hew as on tour, he also announced an early drop of a single on his album “Slime You Out” featuring SZA, this track truly was the start of the hype for ‘For All the Dogs’ as it absolutely crushed expectations, as it sat at No. 1 on the ‘Billboard Hot 100 Songs’ chart within a week.
For All the Dogs’ had been highly anticipated and Drake had his listeners on the edge of their seats waiting for the 3am PST drop.
“I was so excited, I love Drake[’s] music.” Said James Ursich, Skyline student and big Drake fan. “Oh my gosh, I stayed up so late for the album”
Drake also had some big plans for features, while this was a solo album, he did not fail to disappoint with some big names such as: Sza, 21 Savage, J. Cole, Yeat, and Lil Yachty. Leading up to the album there was no clear winner of who the best collab would be, when fans were asked prior to release they certainly had their own ideas of who the most exciting feature was.
“Definitely the 21 Savage feature, I’m a big fan of 21” -Caden Culver
“SZA! Not the most surprising, but that’s just the best one.” -James Ursich
Many fans were expecting something huge as his last solo album, ‘Honestly, Nevermind’ is considered his best in recent years, with the likes of ‘Jimmy Cooks (feat. 21 Savage)’ and ‘Sticky’ being some of his most popular tracks. the official release had mixed reactions.
“Favorite song, I’ll go with daylight” said Marcelo Biggs on his favorite tack of the album, “The sample that he used in the beginning was probably the best part.”
“Rich Baby Daddy, was the best one.” Caden Culver said “It [The SZA feature] was pretty good, she added another dimension to the song.”
People seemed to all have one or two songs they would add to their playlist. However, the album was certainly underwhelming for Drake’s standard as many fans seemed to be expecting more.
“I’d give it a five maybe a four [out of ten], it was ok.” -Caden Culver
“The good songs were really good, but I don’t think there was enough quality ones.” -Marcelo Biggs
Overall, it’s easy to say the album was not on par with people’s expectations. I got ten high school students that are average Drake fans to rate the album out of ten and they gave it a 6.7. While this on paper isn’t a bad rating, fans were definitely craving something huge, and this just wasn’t it.
