It’s been a bit of a strange summer for pop music. There is no clear-cut song of the summer (though Cardi B’s “I Like It” seems as close as we are going to get to one, if somewhat by default). The central “story lines” this June have been a surprise album release by Beyoncé and Jay-Z—Everything Is Love—which, despite dominating all of our social-media feeds for a weekend, has not spawned much in the way of charting hits (the album itself failed to debut at No. 1). And, of course, there were Kanye West’s Wyoming albums, each seven songs long, released on consecutive Fridays for the past five weeks (from Pusha-T, West on his own, a West and Kid Cudi collaboration,__ Nas, and Teyana Taylor, with each produced by West). West’s output attracted much in the way of attention (each album was preceded by a high-profile listening party, several of which were live-Instagram-Storied by Kim Kardashian West), but it remains to be seen if they will be soundtracking barbecues come July and August.
This brings us to Drake, whose album Scorpion arrived Friday. Compared to Beyoncé and Jay-Z or West, what’s perhaps most notable about this release is how . . . traditional it all is. This album was about as un-“surprise release” as an album can get these days. Drake announced the release date and title months ago. There have been two very successful singles from the album already released: “God’s Plan,” Drake’s first song to debut at No. 1 (where it remained for 11 weeks), and then “Nice for What,” which clocked seven weeks at the top spot. (“Every title doing numbers like I’m Miss Adele,” he raps on Scorpion’s “Sandra Rose.”) Both songs—in addition to third single “I’m Upset”—were given flashy music videos as well, “Nice for What” involving a bevy of female celebrities, and “I’m Upset” a full-fledged Degrassi reunion. After that sort of chart domination, the album’s release itself runs the risk of feeling a bit like an afterthought—a potential pitfall of giving so much advance notice.
And the structure of the album feels like a throwback, too. Scorpion has a whopping 25 songs—split into two sides—and is one of the few albums in recent memory to make headlines for its liner notes (in which he called out a few common critiques people make about him). Like Taylor Swift or Adele’s recent output, Scorpion feels like it could have been released in 2004—it’s almost easier to imagine holding these releases in one’s hands as a physical CD, after purchasing at Target, as opposed to streaming them digitally.
Drake is also aligned with the recent tacks of fellow members of the (dwindling) mega-pop-star ranks: like Beyoncé and Swift, he’s letting his lyrics do the talking. After his back-and-forth with Pusha-T earlier this summer, during which Pusha-T alleged Drake had a “secret” child, Drake did not respond publicly. On Scorpion’s “8 Out of 10,” he explains himself a bit: “Breakin’ news in my life, I don’t run to the blogs / The only ones I wanna tell are the ones I can call. They always ask, ‘Why let the story run if it’s false?’ / You know a wise man once said nothin’ at all / I’m exhausted and drained I can’t even pretend.”
Instead of running to the blogs, Drake goes on to address several “hot topics” in the album, acknowledging his son, and providing some specifics about his relationship with his son’s mother. He also alludes to a relationship with Bella Hadid (or is it Rihanna?), and references the time Diddy reportedly punched him, among other allusions to tabloid-friendly narratives.
Like Swift, Beyoncé, and Adele, Drake keeps a pretty low-profile day-to-day, generally—you see them in their Instagram posts, and when they have an album out, but otherwise, they do not have much they want to say to us outside of their work. The message seems clear: if you want to know what’s going on, come hang with me on my album. And in the case of Scorpion, Drake has sent us the calendar invite way in advance, and given us ample time to prepare. While other artists attempt surprise albums and other strategic variations on the form, given the rapidly changing streaming-first climate, Drake is sticking to what has worked for him before, even if it might increasingly start to feel like a throwback.
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