The Millennial obsession with over-sharing personal information and emotions via the Internet is a rather large and easy target. Drake’s third offering, "Nothing Was The Same," has rightly earned him the title of the "defining Millennial hip-hop superstar."
NWTS makes two critical changes from Drizzy’s freshman and sophomore efforts.
Drake has vacated his role as the late-aughts' go-to man for hip-hop hooks, and has been replaced by the boisterous Titty 2 Necklace. But I didn't expect that Drake wouldn't have many guests on his albums, either. The only guest feature on NWTS is another mailed-in verse from Jay Z.
Drake’s maudlin confessionals run uninterrupted for the album’s tight 13 tracks. Relative unknown Jhené Aiko’s warble on "From Time" doesn’t distract from Drake lamenting that his mother is growing old alone.
The second change from his earlier work is this: Drake’s success on "Thank Me Later" and "Take Care" was kickstarted by the albums' unavoidable pop songs. Only "Hold On, We’re Going On" shares anything in common with any of Drizzy’s previous catalog.
Listening to NWTS, you get the sense that Drake wrote the album by running some drunken tweets through Storify. That makes the album more personal than his earlier efforts, but not as catchy. "Worst Behavior" is no "Fancy" or "Make Me Proud."
Disappointingly, NWTS doesn't occupy the lush sonic landscape of "Take Care." But like all Drake albums, it's best listened to at night in a drunken marathon Facebook stalking session.
Ironically, it's the Canadian-born Drake who best personifies the idea that Millennials are either the very group best equipped to reclaim America's glory or the last nail in the coffin.