Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. Hope you're doing well.

We really need to jump in here and do a Drake fan base wellness check because I'm starting to get concerned given some of the narratives and fears and paranoia that seems to be pervading in the Drake fan base with the release of his new collab album with PARTYNEXTDOOR, Some Sexy Songs 4 U, which, mind you, is a record that has not even been out for a full entire week yet. And these people are already worrying about the numbers. Like, the billboard hasn't even updated for this album yet. And when that eventually happens, this new Drake LP may, in fact, do pretty well.

I mean, considering the conditions under which it's being released, I actually think the performance of this record thus far is impressive because, of course, Drake is collaborating/operating with a much smaller artist on his own OVO label for this record. This is not the massive industry attention-demanding team-up of his 21 Savage album. The music on this record comparatively with past Drake releases is very low-key, very spacy, very R&B-driven, not a whole lot of straight-up rap tracks.

There wasn't a really huge, big promotional rollout for this album. No massive single, teasing toward the record, or big music video coming out of the gate to bring the album some extra virality. Drake currently right now is obviously not on great terms with his label, UMG, given that he is suing them. So it's surprising that this album is coming out to begin with, as you would think both he and UMG would want to avoid each other at all costs right now, but this record still saw the light of day.

Obviously, Drake's image too has taken quite a few hits given the way that he lost in that beef against Kendrick Lamar. But look, despite all of these obstacles right now in front of the boy, the album seems to be doing relatively well, netting millions of streams across its 20-plus tracks. I mean, yeah, I regret to inform all of the Drake haters who thought that he might disappear after this whole thing, that he is here to stay, musically speaking.

But yeah, for the most part, the reception of this record so far has been more or less what I would have expected from your average Drake project. To the Drake fans, it's the greatest and most amazing thing he's ever put out. It's mind-blowing and some of his best work to date. And for the Drake haters, it's all complete garbage. Every song is terrible, no good songs, and the bad songs are all the songs.

Again, mostly what I would have expected, but I think in the wake of the beef, these positions are a little more polarized than they would have been in the past, but still, they have the same flavor of polarization. And again, the record for what it's worth, seems to be doing relatively well. But for the Drake fans who have a real issue with living in reality, or at least in a reality where Drake is not the biggest and most beloved artist of all time, the record is doing well, but maybe not well enough by their standards, because it's not enough for this album to go number one or top five or top 10. It's got to be like a record-breaking and topping every other artist out there he's competing with, especially Kendrick. And if it's not doing that, then something must be afoot.

So of course, you have total psychos in the OVO fan base sniffing around what few numbers they can get a hold of now at this very early stage of metrics on this album coming out. And you are starting to see crashouts like the one that we have up here on the screen right now, where there's this concern about the numbers that we're seeing from Apple Music and other streaming platforms versus Spotify. Why is there such a gap? Why is there such a difference? Why is there such a split? Is the boy being blacklisted? It's a conspiracy, I tell you. A conspiracy. The industry hates Drake. Nobody wants to see him succeed. It's over. It's over.

Okay, let's try to get a goddamn grip here. First off, again, we're not talking about a full week of official numbers yet that have been logged into the Billboard charts, and when that all eventually happens and gets counted up, this album may, in fact, end up charting very well.

Look, even if commercially, Drake ends up faltering on this record a little bit, there are some very logical reasons as to why, especially when it comes to this Spotify gap. I mean, first off, maybe the Apple Music numbers are more impressive because Drake does actually have a promotional agreement with Apple Music itself. His ties with them seemingly run pretty deep. And then in regards to Spotify, can we please recall that Drake roped Spotify into his series of statements against his label, claiming they actively took part in astroturfing the popularity of "Not Like Us".

I mean, look, we've done numerous videos on this channel about the ways in which Spotify cuts down the potential of success on their platform for smaller artists, for experimental artists, more obscure artists broadly. That very much is a thing that happens. I think a lot of users of the Spotify platform, and all music streaming services, honestly, don't necessarily understand how they work or how a lot of engagement on them occurs. Even if you're a fan of this channel, you may, in fact, be under the false presumption that a lot of people might log on to one of these platforms in the same way that you do, looking to hear a very exact, specific thing that you already have in mind. When it is in fact the case that most people get onto a platform like Spotify, pretty much being herded like schools of fish into various pathways that are created for them through playlists and algorithmic suggestions and so on and so forth.

So even if Drake is currently getting some playlist promotion behind this new PND project, which he very much, in fact, is. There are other more less visual ways through which Spotify can essentially disincentivize listeners to stumble across this record and listen to it. That may, in fact, be what is happening here. But I don't want to buy into this narrative that a lot of Drake fans are pushing, that this is some David and Goliath moment where some great injustice is being suffered because Drake isn't getting the promotion that OVO fans think he deserves.

Because remember, again, Drake's public statements against Spotify, which may have, in fact, led to a bridge being burnt where the platform maybe didn't want to promote him like they usually do this time around for this new record. Those statements were in regards to him claiming Spotify nefariously took part in some secret, cabal-type orchestrated situation to force a Kendrick Lamar diss track onto everybody and fake its popularity. That's not the same thing as Drake, the artist, taking a platform like Spotify to task because they're not giving certain artists the exposure they deserve or they are not paying artists adequately.

So again, I'll remind Drake fans that currently right now we're not even functioning off of a full week of reported numbers yet. On top of it, if there is genuinely anything going on vis-a-vis Drake not getting the promotion that he typically does from Spotify that might have something to do with him having personal beef with Spotify, which he has publicly voiced.

And look, if that to you is something that is wrong and is unfair and shouldn't happen. The question is, what should Drake fans do past this point to remedy this? Are they willing to boycott Spotify entirely? Stop obsessing over whatever Drake numbers you see coming out of the platform. Stop using the platform. Stop buying subscriptions. Because if you really, really hate this, but you're not willing to take money out of Spotify's pocket as a means of supporting Drake and finding other ways to pay and fund the livelihoods of the artist that matter to you the most, what are we really doing here? Why complaining and complaining that a new Drake album maybe isn't doing as well as a lot of his past records have been commercially, as popular as the guy is.

Not every album is going to hit in exactly the same way. That's just like an unreasonable expectation. If that's your hope, if that's what you want, if that's what you know in your heart is going to happen every single time your favorite release is an album, you're going to either find yourself in a position at some point where you're disappointed or you're forcing yourself to live in a false reality that for whatever reason, you are now making everyone else's problem.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on this. Let me know yours down in the comments. I know you will.

Anthony Fantano. Drake. Party Next Door. Spotify. Forever.