No, It’s Actually Okay To Dislike Drake’s Album, And Here’s Why
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Zach Baron wraps up a slick, strategically-written defense of Drake over at the Village Voice. Here’s his “whaaa?” kicker, which is quite brilliant actually:
Like the similarly loathed Wes Anderson and Sofia Coppola, who have eloquently staked out the territory of upper-middle-class malaise in cinema, Drake’s done the same thing in rap. How much this bothers you probably depends on how much the upper-middle-class bothers you. But that’s your problem, not his.
It’s a nice rhetorical move that more or less equates Drake’s dispatches from the frontlines of 2010 pop stardom (and his background as a child actor with connected folks) with the “upper-middle-class malaise” of The Royal Tenenbaums or The Virgin Suicides. And if you’re uncomfortable with that, the argument goes, well, maybe that’s the point of the art.
Of course, this is a highly superficial comparison made to prove another point, and which does no real justice to any of the artists or works he mentions. It elides the actual art in favor of the context of the art (which is sort of what Drake himself does too…I’ll get to that in a second), skimming over the fact that neither of those films were about the authors’ own lives (nor do their plots have anything to do with Drake’s self-obsessed celeb culture fascinations).
All this is to say that it’s unfair for Baron to imply that that disliking Drake comes out of a particular classist worldview that listeners might be struggling with and unconsciously projecting. The class point relates to the rockist one that Baron makes earlier in the post–critics can handle “struggle” in rap narratives, but not Drake’s tales of upper-middle-class connections and pop machinations–though the rockism thing is something I’m really not as interested in.
Drake is a whiner, which isn’t exactly a new thing in pop, but it’s the style and content of his whining that gets me.* His first official LP, the one that enters him into the pop star arms race, is wholly made up of meta-level reflections of his own pop stardom, along with the cultural and socio-economic machinations that brought him here. Which brings me to the important question: and? What I find so unpleasant about Drake is what I dislike so much about 2010-era pop culture in general: meta-level oversharing as art (and celebrity) itself, with precious little else to hold onto.
In other words, Thank Me Later isn’t pulling from the tragi-comic, semi-sweet upper-middle class narrative style of Coppola or Anderson, not even close. Instead, it’s the new “reality rap,” and I’ve no doubt that lots of people are going to love it, in the same way that lots of people love watching others make pseudo-stars out of themselves in the sterilized world of reality television, former celebrities try to pull themselves back up to a lost level of fame by humiliating themselves in the same venue, or incessantly sharing mundane “thoughts” on Twitter. Drake’s story is unique and interesting, but he leverages it within this framework. He’s complaining about the trials and tribulations of being the lead member of rap’s 2010 nouveau riche on the same album that proves that point, and you’re not a rockist or classist for finding this irritating.
On a bad day, I’d call Drake rap’s Ashton Kutcher. But to be honest, Drake’s a talented guy who’s made an incredibly boring album-about-making-an-album and the tiresome celebrity culture that comes with it. What’s important about that is that this whole thing so perfectly reflects 2010–in all the wrong ways. Thank Me Later to be brief, is only possible at a particular time when we too often don’t really care about the actual content of a pop star’s icon or personality or art as much as we want to know what they think about it.
*There are many other, much more musical things I don’t like about this album, but I’ll leave those for later, or for others.
Filed under: Ashton Kutcher Drake rap Sofia Coppola Village Voice Wes Anderson Zach Baron
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Hey, not fair. What about those of us who don’t like the album, not because we are uncomfortable with the upper-middle class, but because we’re uncomfortable with the upper-middle class bitching?
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I’d be the first one to point out the class issues that dominate artists viewed as upper middle class (self-aware or not). It’s in play just as much here as it is Vampire Weekend or M.I.A. The difference is that they both make a lot better music than Drake.
The self-wraught woe is me phenomenon of non-gangsta rap is a constant problem with mainstream hip-hop. The sad thing is an argument could have been made for Kanye being the most important voice of the decade if Kanye hadn’t said it himself. I have no idea what would’ve happened in Bob Dylan had said that publicly in 1967.
Vampire Weekend are doing a pretty radically different thing that Drake, doing it much more artfully and with a ton more imagination. And better songs. I’ve given up on MIA.
The MIA backlash seems to be more a case of people harboring some misgivings about her being overrated for years and looking for a reason to let it out at the soonest available opportunity. I’d disagree on her being overrated, but I’m more culturally minded than most critics, so I understand.
I agree with Jordan!
For some reason, I feel no sympathy when I listen to Drake bitching about having to stay in the studio to make tracks instead going out and partying. Doesn’t that come with the territory?
Wow, I didn’t know I liked Drake’s album because I liked “former celebrities try[ing] to pull themselves back up to a lost level of fame by humiliating themselves in the same venue.” I thought I liked it because music is subjective and I might have a different taste in music than you. Thanks for the explanation!
M.I.A is good music. Drake is bad music.
Everyone wants to make a big deal that it’s his first album and he’s already commenting on fame, as if he needs to get laid at least 20 more times and start dating a girl more famous than Rihanna for everybody to accept that he’s “allowed to talk about this stuff.”
Except that even if you buy into that argument, everyone knows “Best I Ever Had” was what entered him into the pop arms race, not this album. It’s 2010 and stars get famous fast, especially when they were formerly famous for something else (albeit on a much smaller scale) and run in the circle of already-famous people. The album’s emotional weight comes from how much of a gut-level, dazed reaction it is to fame.
Second of all, I find it interesting that you accuse Drake of “whining” when really he’s just engaging in the same emotional introspection that rock music has long delved into but from the angle of a famous rapper. Why is it whining when a rapper does it? Most of what Drake does on this album I would call not “whining” but simply “making observations,” and some of those do come with more than hint of dissatisfaction, but he makes it pretty clear that he’s grateful for what he has in life despite that. I mean how many lines are there in there where he basically says that directly? The man obviously loves being famous, but why is the fact that he has anything *else* to say about his celebrity such a problem for you?
Drake is indeed coming from a new perspective in hip hop, wealthier but also much less obsessed with reaffirming it’s masculinity and *much* more respectful towards women. He knows that he’s different from most rappers and he embraces those differences, please tell my why that is a bad thing within the context of so much rap falling into a holding pattern of lazy misogyny and emotionless drug talk. Plus by attacking Drake for “whining” and “over-sharing” you’re kind of reaffirming that hyper-masculine philosophy among rappers that they can’t talk about anything but that stuff!
Drake is a TERRIBLE rapper…
This is very thought provoking, and very true about his self obsession and society wanting to knw the celebs thoughts more than the art itself, someone like Lady Gaga doesnt fall into this trap and thats what makes her an artist. Drakes songs are good and catchy and i love him, i just want to know how long the complaining can last, what can he bring to the table next, because it funny how he’s compared to eminem and how eminems first album predicted its ensuing contorversy just like drakes predicts what fame will be like for him. But then we gradually so eminem turn in to a paraody of himself and i fear that Drake might follow suit or people will just get bored of him