Hi, everyone. Brrthony Toasttano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake album, $ome $exy $ongs 4 You.

Here we have a new surprise collaboration between two of the most prominent artists on the hip hop and RnB scene in Canada, North America, the world, that would be PARTYNEXTDOOR, as well as the one and only Drake. And this record arrives at a very interesting time in both their careers, respectively.

Now, to be honest, PARTYNEXTDOOR, despite his relevancy in the Canadian music scene, combined with the support of Drake's OVO label, his career has been slowing down as of late. I mean, the album he dropped last year already feels like a distant memory. The front cover of it was more memorable than the music itself on the project. Plus, it took four years to deliver following the release of his Partymobile album, which a lot of fans considered that record to be his worst album to date. I mean, his last record still did almost do 40K out of the gate, which is nothing to sneeze at, but his progression has been slowing down for a while now for sure.

Then there's Drake, who had a very eventful 2024, to say the least. You would have to have been born yesterday to have no idea why. In short, he lost what is most likely going to go down as the biggest hip hop beef of this decade, if not within the history of the whole genre, with multiple incendiary tracks being launched between him and Compton's own Kendrick Lamar, which understandably has hurt the man's pride a bit and impacted his public image.

But Drake has walked away from similarly intense scraps in the past, more or less functional and still able to give the fans exactly what they want. However, for the better part of 2024, I would say he really struggled to get his mojo back, musically speaking, repeatedly dropping these weird, pointless or confusing artistic sidequests that didn't really do much to reset his image. But in Drake's defense, even if he was dropping some of the biggest bangers of his career, I imagine it would be tough to outshine the noise created by tracks such as "Not Like Us", especially given the viral spread of that song, combined with how well loved in the industry it is at the moment.

It just won multiple Grammys and has been broadcast to millions of people collectively, not just from Kendrick Lamar's recent pop-out show performance, but he just performed that damn song during a Super Bowl halftime show. But even with the odds stacked against him, I think the only real answer for Drake at this point is to release music. Put out music people want to hear and are excited about, and I think you'll find very quickly they will move on.

I mean, it's at least worth trying since everything else he's done up until this point hasn't quite worked. Like his recent efforts to launch a full-fledged lawsuit against his label, UMG, as they released both the Drake and Kendrick Lamar diss songs. So, yeah, now, Drake is trying to hold UMG responsible for the things Kendrick Lamar said that he felt were defamatory. And this certainly hasn't endeared anyone to him who might have thought he looked a little foolish walking away from this rival. But either way, I guess we'll see whether or not he makes headway with this lawsuit.

So with all of this going on through this new collab project with PARTYNEXTDOOR, Drake does seem to be making a genuine effort at getting back into making music. But he's slow rolling the process a little bit because if you notice, it's PARTYNEXTDOOR who gets first billing on this record, even if most people are going to go into this album looking at it as a Drake project, and Drake certainly takes up most of the album's run time, too.

Still, musically and vocally speaking, Drake is not coming out of the gate aggressive on this one. Drake is really deep in his RnB bag this time with lots of reverb and smooth synths and gentle percussion, autocrooned vocals. We are really getting Drake at his most sensual and subdued. All these tracks blend together into this sleepy, soft, porno soundtrack vibe that doesn't really leave much of an impression, and certainly isn't doing much of anything to grab your attention enough to draw your ears to it. The progressions are repetitive, the vocal melodies are not really that bold. So much autotune is used so that in a way, Drake's and PARTYNEXTDOOR's vocals sound way more similar than they need to be. Not many of the lyrics really stand out as well. Really, to me, it feels like a lesser version of what I imagine a Drake and Future RnB album would sound like.

So yeah, that's really the tone this whole record sets. But because this album has over 20 tracks and more than 70 minutes of run time, it does have to shake things up eventually. But sadly, switching gears doesn't really yield many exciting results.

"Small Town Fame" is the first cut on the entire record that I think actually shows a pulse. But at the end of the day, this feels like a short, unfinished song that could have landed, I don't know, somewhere in the middle of some harder and more memorable cuts on Drake's If You're Reading This It's Too Late mixtape.

Considering how low-key the entire album is overall, the "Pimmie's Dilemma" interlude is just a waste of dead space that we didn't really need.

The song "Gimme a Hug" has a bit of energy to it, and it's the first track on this record where Drake provides a big, bold, major response to this recent beef. I'm sure it's convincing for anybody who feels like he came out of that whole thing unscathed. "Drake elimination, fake intimidation, take a minute / take a deep breath, have a little bit of patience." Then following this, Drake starts to compliment himself, but he has to do it as if it's a quote from somebody else saying it. "Drizzy, you amazing / You the inspiration / You set the bar for the next generation / You Neo in the matrix / These dudes just Nemo in the ocean, small fish making kids feel emotion."

The way he disses Kendrick, specifically, but also other rappers, too, is just bewildering to me, especially given that in the greater world cartoon franchises, Nemo is a beloved character that people like, the main character, in fact, that you as the audience is rooting for. On top of that, what's wrong with making people feel emotion? Oh, yeah, that guy makes people feel emotion with his music and with his lyrics. That's lame.

Then deeper into the track, he throws out what I think is another shot at the music Kendrick makes. "Had the girls up at 29 on stage working with a dictionary," which – I'm so tired of all this anti-intellectual bullshit where artists and influencers are just celebrating how dumb they are or essentially how they're determined to just not learn things. Oh, man, you write songs with words that people might have to look up. He even boasts dropping harder shit than his competition on the cut, but then immediately transitions into all of these obnoxious, Give me a hug, give me a hug, give me a hug, refrains. He's literally giving us Where my hug at energy, and it's difficult to listen to.

Then the record hits another lull before going into what is probably the worst song on the entire album, "Meet Your Padre". If you know Drake and you see the title of this track and also consider the Chino Pacas feature on the song, you know what he's going to do on this thing. Yeah, he's essentially giving us this hip hop/regional Mexican music blend while throwing out a lot bars where he is just trying to mixed language flirt. "I want your phone numero, por favor." It is so goddamn awkward. I cannot stand it. That's just the tip of the iceberg of all of the I failed high school Spanish lyrics on this track.

Things miraculously get switched up on the track "Nokia", which is this throwback dance/hip hop jammer, which not only makes for the best song on this album, but maybe the best track Drake has released in years. I don't know, between the goofy vocal refrains on this track and the peppy beat and just how unseriously Drake seems to take himself on this song, it's just got a vibrant and uplifting energy to it that I wish more songs on this record had. I mean, it really feels like Drake is throwing off all of the drama and the moody bullshit and just making a track that is straight up a good time. Why are we not getting more of this track? It's fantastic.

But after this, it doesn't really take long for the energy on this record to drop off as we have the mind numbing "Die Trying" immediately after, where Drake teams up with Yebba to do this summery, acoustic, ballad jam thing over a very basic and lazy beat. I mean, while this sound is new for Drake, it's not new in the greater scheme of things and isn't exactly fresh or interesting.

Honestly, while all of the nondescript, sleepy RnB cuts in the first leg of the album were a bore, I wish the album would just go back to that, especially considering how much worse it gets when Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR try to get more intimate and descriptive in their lyrisism, like on the song "Celibacy", where Drake is trying to essentially just prod this woman into letting him break her celibacy streak. The song "OMW" is also like, weirdly persistent and reads like Drake is trying to prize some woman away from her kids at the house or maybe provide some wine mom fantasy. Like, yeah, call the nanny, have her put the kids to bed and you're going to come out with me. You're going to ride with the owl.

There's also "When He's Gone", which is a bit of a questionable moment where Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR are trying to prize some woman away from her man. Presumably, the guy is not a very good boyfriend or their relationship is on the out. But It's just so funny that they're so quick to lyrically paint themselves in this way where they're lurking around the corner waiting like, Hey, is he gone? Come on, come with me. Is he gone yet? Why are we creeping around and trying to pressure people into doing stuff. It's just so not sexy.

The song "Glorious" is also really weird. It's got this uncredited Ice Spice performance where she's talking and explaining things, and then Drake is melodically rambling over this very odd light drill beat. There's a concept to it, but the end result is just a song that's boring as sin. Once again, another track that I couldn't imagine anybody having sex to. The last track is really nothing to write home about either.

And yeah, overall, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U is just a really bland, unremarkable listen. I mean, I don't think I could genuinely come out here and say this is some of Drake's worst material to date or anything like that. Sure, there are some lows along the run time of this very, very long tracklist, but the vast majority of the album just feels like very inoffensive RnB wallpaper, which is why I'm feeling about a light 4 on it.

Anthony Fantano, Drake, PARTYNEXTDOOR. $ome $exy $ongs 4 U. Forever.