For All The Dogs – Drake ★½

Year	Album	Artist	Stars	Score	Genre
2023	For All The Dogs	Drake	★½	32	Hip-Hop

I don’t think I’ve actually liked a Drake album since about 2014, but it’s hard to deny that he’s consistently been able to produce a handful of quality songs and singles every year since his commercial debut in 2009.  

Yeah, he’s corny. He’s overplayed. He artificially stirs up drama. His prime is well behind him as a lyricist and as a singer. But he’s historically known how to stay relevant, read the trends and ride the wave. 

However, over his past few records, the number of stand out tracks has continued to slowly drop, and the number of skippable — or flat out unlistenable — songs has continued to rise, while album runtimes have ballooned. And his songs more often feel like Drake doing a Drake parody and being in on a joke nobody else wants to be a part of. 

Sitting at 23 tracks and with an appalling hour and 24 minute run, it’s hard to fathom that “For All The Dogs” is really for anyone other than Drake. 

The R&B moments are better than the hip-hop ones, but not nearly as good as any of the ballads on his other records. His lyrics range from fine at best to lame more often than not. And there are too many samples that are too obvious to be cool, like the “Dog Days are Over,” “If I Ruled The World” and Pet Shop Boys call outs.

The dance songs with PARTYNEXTDOOR and Bad Bunny are almost instant skips, and he again finds an excuse to mimic an accent and poorly speak another language. He feels out of his elements on the get-hype, rage styled tracks like “Fear of Heights” and “Daylight” and “IDGAF,” which sound like bargain bin beats left on Lil Uzi Vert or Playboi Carti’s clearance shelf. There are too many pointless interludes or inexplicable vocal samples, like the woman talking about eating ox tail. There are too many skits about Drake’s kid and jokes about the album’s dog theme, the latter of which comes off as annoying instead of funny or cute. 

The best moments come from J. Cole, Teezo Touchdown, Lil Yachty (who isn’t great but is on an alright track), Chief Keef and SZA, who salvages a terrible dance track with a fun verse in the middle. But outside of “Slime You Out” — the lead single and the records other SZA feature — “Tried Our Best,” the opening track and maybe “8am in Charlotte,” there’s nothing I see myself going out of my way to listen to.  

There’s more than enough good Drake out there. No point in wasting your time trying to find the few good elements that remain here.