Nope not buying it...
I know we're witnessing the largest buzz we've seen for an artist in recent memory, but I am just not on the bandwagon...
Drake's album drops today and I, like dozens of friends (as discussed on Facebook ad infinium), caught the leak every bit of a week and a half ago. Unlike most of them, save for two or three, I am just not feeling it, try as I might.
Look, I know I am no rapper, but I never claimed to be either. I DO, however, claim to be a bit of a connoisseur, and can readily name why I feel the way I do about things that I do or do not like. As it were, the sing-songy, soft-as-a-bag-of-wet donuts presentation does not appeal to me. Perhaps that is owing to the fact that I was born before 1985 and without a vagina. I thank my parents for both, but that is not the point of this blog.
Conversations on sites like XXLMag.com go on and on about how many copies the album might sell this week alone.
[1] [2] [3], just to name a few...
It is being said that the album is (smartly, mind you, knowing what "happened" to Asher Roth around this time last year) shipping Gold to capitalize on the fact that people are at least TALKING about Wheelchair Jimmy, even if they just don't like the boy.
[Phlip note - hell, even I try to pad my adsense dollars by talking about it right now, not to mention that there ain't shit else to talk about]
Do I think the album will break 500k in the first week, even with the outpouring of support from women, teenagers and rap emos?
Not with this shit.
Look, I know it comes off as though I am hating on the dude, and I probably am, but I just can't feel this whiny autotuned sing-along shit. I can understand that he is different, popular and better spoken than 4.7362 out of 5 rappers, but I have a difficult time buying his story, even if it DOESN'T include guns, drugs (other than weed) and crime. All things being fair, even non thug-types love the presence of women, so there is that.
On the other side of it, though, is the opinion of The Katie, who listened over my shoulder by virtue of having been in the room with me as I listened to it. See, she actually kinda liked the dude's work, at least a couple of songs, but as I listened the first time she spun around and said to me "this isn't very good," to my agreement that it was going too far out of his way not to be intimidating, too "safe," too "pop..." Fuck, in the general terms of a hip hop album, it was fucking boring.
The largest debut of recent memory, Drake's mentor Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, did so because it covered all bases... You had club songs, you had something for the ladies, you had social commentary, you had something for the n-words of the world and all that goodness. The thing, though, is that even if you HATED Wayne, you found SOMETHING on the album to like.
The fact that the album released among a deluge of TERRIBLE albums just ahead of the implosion of the economy. I mean that to say that everyone had $9.99 or less for single-disc CDs at FYE to spend (c'mon, son! cut the check!) for an album that we'd all heard off of someone else's copy, added to a UNAVOIDABLE mixtape campaign and maze of features. We were inundated with the boy, still are actually.
Drake doesn't have that. As I have discussed before, it is somewhere between really easy and really hard to like Lil Wayne, but at the end of it, you have to respect that he knows what the hell he is doing.
Drake is an extension of that. Wayne goes to jail for a life that is one large collection of "N**ga Moments" and has to go to jail for about a year. Before he goes, he reminds us with the presence of someone who just really isn't that good, and isn't even as talented as himself, that he can still make a large buck off of the impulse of a fickle buying public. Score another one for Wayne, but let us hope that Aubrey is managing his funds better than anyone else who has been successful under the Cash Money Records banner, lest he may find himself in jail, addicted to heroin or leaving and returning to the label to try to make a buck.
Will Thank Me Later eventually sell 500k, or even a million units?
I would like to think that I had such a lack of a value placed on my time that I would spend 3 hours over the course of a weekend listening to an album with the intentions to fucking hate it, but I don't. I value my time far too much for that. Better use of that time would have been made having sex a few times, cutting my yard at least once, going for a walk or a run, going to play ball, pick up and harrass mylittle buddy nephew, or ANYTHING for that matter. As it were, though, of a hair over an hour of album, I can honestly say I enjoyed 5 minutes and some seconds. That falls under an absolutely shitty average, people. Not to take from anyone who actually enjoys this, what I feel is an overhyped hunk of shit, just that this happens to be my blog and I am just not feeling it.
I also find it TERRIBLY ironic that someone claiming to "not be made by the machine" to paraphrase is allowing themselves to be used as the corporations' puppet of late. Oh well, such is the machine, we take our stars from nothing to build them up and then tear them back down, all for our amusement.
Sucks, I know, but that is the inflation on the price for fame thus making ANYONE who looks to be rich by way of their own fame a sellout, whether they like it or not.
To the task at hand, though?
Thank Me Later? No thanks, Aubrey, how about I don't thank you at all.
Drake's album drops today and I, like dozens of friends (as discussed on Facebook ad infinium), caught the leak every bit of a week and a half ago. Unlike most of them, save for two or three, I am just not feeling it, try as I might.
Look, I know I am no rapper, but I never claimed to be either. I DO, however, claim to be a bit of a connoisseur, and can readily name why I feel the way I do about things that I do or do not like. As it were, the sing-songy, soft-as-a-bag-of-wet donuts presentation does not appeal to me. Perhaps that is owing to the fact that I was born before 1985 and without a vagina. I thank my parents for both, but that is not the point of this blog.
Conversations on sites like XXLMag.com go on and on about how many copies the album might sell this week alone.
[1] [2] [3], just to name a few...
It is being said that the album is (smartly, mind you, knowing what "happened" to Asher Roth around this time last year) shipping Gold to capitalize on the fact that people are at least TALKING about Wheelchair Jimmy, even if they just don't like the boy.
[Phlip note - hell, even I try to pad my adsense dollars by talking about it right now, not to mention that there ain't shit else to talk about]
Do I think the album will break 500k in the first week, even with the outpouring of support from women, teenagers and rap emos?
No.
In a world where Eminem burns slow on the way to to go platinum and albums top the chart despite only moving 125k units -- a number that one would have to TRIPLE just 3-5 years ago -- I just lack faith that this thing gets a first-week certification.Not with this shit.
Look, I know it comes off as though I am hating on the dude, and I probably am, but I just can't feel this whiny autotuned sing-along shit. I can understand that he is different, popular and better spoken than 4.7362 out of 5 rappers, but I have a difficult time buying his story, even if it DOESN'T include guns, drugs (other than weed) and crime. All things being fair, even non thug-types love the presence of women, so there is that.
On the other side of it, though, is the opinion of The Katie, who listened over my shoulder by virtue of having been in the room with me as I listened to it. See, she actually kinda liked the dude's work, at least a couple of songs, but as I listened the first time she spun around and said to me "this isn't very good," to my agreement that it was going too far out of his way not to be intimidating, too "safe," too "pop..." Fuck, in the general terms of a hip hop album, it was fucking boring.
The largest debut of recent memory, Drake's mentor Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III, did so because it covered all bases... You had club songs, you had something for the ladies, you had social commentary, you had something for the n-words of the world and all that goodness. The thing, though, is that even if you HATED Wayne, you found SOMETHING on the album to like.
The fact that the album released among a deluge of TERRIBLE albums just ahead of the implosion of the economy. I mean that to say that everyone had $9.99 or less for single-disc CDs at FYE to spend (c'mon, son! cut the check!) for an album that we'd all heard off of someone else's copy, added to a UNAVOIDABLE mixtape campaign and maze of features. We were inundated with the boy, still are actually.
Drake doesn't have that. As I have discussed before, it is somewhere between really easy and really hard to like Lil Wayne, but at the end of it, you have to respect that he knows what the hell he is doing.
Drake is an extension of that. Wayne goes to jail for a life that is one large collection of "N**ga Moments" and has to go to jail for about a year. Before he goes, he reminds us with the presence of someone who just really isn't that good, and isn't even as talented as himself, that he can still make a large buck off of the impulse of a fickle buying public. Score another one for Wayne, but let us hope that Aubrey is managing his funds better than anyone else who has been successful under the Cash Money Records banner, lest he may find himself in jail, addicted to heroin or leaving and returning to the label to try to make a buck.
Will Thank Me Later eventually sell 500k, or even a million units?
Yes.
Will it get to EITHER of those during the first week?Not in my opinion, it won't
Will my address be the recipient of any of those?Fuck no!
I would like to think that I had such a lack of a value placed on my time that I would spend 3 hours over the course of a weekend listening to an album with the intentions to fucking hate it, but I don't. I value my time far too much for that. Better use of that time would have been made having sex a few times, cutting my yard at least once, going for a walk or a run, going to play ball, pick up and harrass my
I also find it TERRIBLY ironic that someone claiming to "not be made by the machine" to paraphrase is allowing themselves to be used as the corporations' puppet of late. Oh well, such is the machine, we take our stars from nothing to build them up and then tear them back down, all for our amusement.
Sucks, I know, but that is the inflation on the price for fame thus making ANYONE who looks to be rich by way of their own fame a sellout, whether they like it or not.
To the task at hand, though?
Thank Me Later? No thanks, Aubrey, how about I don't thank you at all.
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