Kendrick Lamar, meanwhile, that most elusive of rappers, known to zig when others zag, recently returned to public consciousness with an album hype machine of his own. When Daft Punk released Random Access Memories in 2013, reviewers hailed a genius promo campaign involving stylish billboards and 15-second TV ads while failing to notice that it was by far the worst music the band had ever made. Playboi Carti released his last album Whole Lotta Red after a full two years of hype, then when it finally arrived, everyone hated it (it didn’t even matter that it was actually quite good). In an attention economy, the professional attention seeker is king. Kanye has further undermined the music’s importance by publicly stating that it shouldn’t exist, because his record label, Universal, put the album out without his permission.īut the fact is that every decision Kanye makes, every outfit he wears, every artist he works with, every event he announces, and every time he changes his or his album’s name, it makes news. Kanye's alignment with Manson, in particular, has overshadowed the music on DONDA so much that some have even criticized writers simply for reviewing the album, effectively arguing that we should pretend the music doesn’t exist.

Why? No matter how much DaBaby might rap about food being taken out of his daughters’ mouths, the DONDA events expose cancel culture for the fallacy it is: look at DaBaby’s and Manson’s monthly streaming figures and you’ll see that neither of their careers have really been cancelled at all.Ĭompared to rape survivors and sufferers of homophobic abuse, the idea that DaBaby and Manson are in any way 'victims' is laughable. As there’s been a pandemic on, and because he’s given us lots of guest verses and singles, and because he’s Drake, we can just about forgive him for missing his original deadline (which was in January).īut some things are more difficult to forgive.

We could be here all day.įollowing more than a year of hype, Drake delivers Certified Lover Boy after announcing the album’s guests and track titles on a series of 'cryptic' billboards around North America. Even Drake isn’t expecting us to believe that he recorded his previous album-length release, Dark Lane Demo Tapes, in anything other than a studio.īut it’s important not to get caught up in semantics. Of course, 'studio album' doesn’t mean anything at this point. You may even have heard the title before.Īs early as August 2020 we were offered the name of Drake’s next studio album.

You’ll have noticed that Drake released an album today. We’re still worried about social media and information overload and North Korea and terrorism, as well as a million other things, but on top of that, the release of a record has now become such a big deal that it’s totally eclipsed the importance of the music itself.

Drake hype songs