Drake and PARTYNEXTDOOR release a sluggish, boring collab album that drags on for far too long. The 1 hour and 13 minute long project, $ome $exy $ongs 4 U released on Valentine’s Day. It charted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200, and has been in competition for the spot ever since.
The duo is iconic, being some of the biggest icons in Canadian music. Drake has a historic catalog alongside PARTYNEXTDOOR, who, while not receiving the same commercial success, has a collection of memorable and beloved songs among his fan base. The two have had a history of collaborating, whether it be in features or singles, so an album between the two had been a long time coming.
The track “CN TOWER” starts the album off with somewhat of an anthem for the hometown of both artists, that being the Greater Toronto Area. Throughout the song, they relate the lights and colors of the city to their love life. The song starts off with both saying, “What color is the CN Tower? It’s red just like the text I sent you…” This is continued as they relate the tower’s blue light’s to their own sadness, and they later compare the tower’s green lights to the envy directed toward them from others.
“MOTH BALLS,” the second song, has a very promising start, with a solid first verse from Drake and some rather interesting production. However, listeners are quickly brought back to the blandness of the album, as a boring beat switch comes in around one minute into the song. In comes PARTY’s poorly mixed vocals and a boring beat with very little lyrical substance
Most of the same from the last track continues, aside from any interesting production, on the track “SOMETHING ABOUT YOU.” Although PARTYNEXTDOOR does have a decent performance near the end, there still isn’t much in the song worth noting, as it’s quite lyrically dry, however the following track “CRYING IN CHANEL” does have something worth noting, its horrific beat. Somehow it hits a new low with its terrible production and grainy vocals.
Really, the next five songs feel the exact same, there’s very little variety. Up until track ten, “GIVE ME A HUG,” where we find one of the few redeemable songs from the album. Some songs on the project only have one of the two artists appear, this one only has Drake, and it worked out well. He’s got some solid word play here, starting with the first line, “Yeah, Drake elimination, fake intimidation.” Drake continues the great performance with a very entertaining beat switch. He even somewhat addresses his beef from last year with Kendrick Lamar brushing it off by saying he doesn’t care about it and that he’s “…tryna get the party lit.”
Unfortunately, the new high of the album doesn’t last for long though as only three songs later, the track “MEET YOUR PADRE” may prove to be the worst piece of work either have made in their lengthy careers spanning over a decade. Drake awkwardly mixes in a few Spanish words here and there, while singing with a Spanish accent, starting the song with the chorus, “I’d like to meet your madre, pay respects to your padre, mi amor.” His delivery is what really puts the nail in the coffin for this song and yet again there’s not enough value in the lyrics to make up for his poor performance, it seems as though writing was the least of their priorities when making $ome $exy $ongs 4 U.
The highlight on the album comes on track fourteen, “NOKIA.” Its the major hit of the album, raking in the most streams off the project and deservingly so. It’s another one of the tracks where Drake goes solo, it’s catchy, well-written, memorable, and overall just genuinely well-made. “NOKIA” is the type of song people listen to both artists like PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake for.
Continuing with the success from the last song, “DIE TRYING” is one of the most personal and honest moments off the album. Drake goes into the losses in his life and the way it affected his attitude towards going into a relationship, “Girl, I miss my friends, you know too many of them have died.” Because of his losses, he finds fully committing to someone to be difficult, as he’s worried it could end too soon.
Even the highlights of this project are hard to enjoy though, as the album is just so long. A twenty one track long song list is hard for any artist to pull off, and the duo just couldn’t do it. There’s still five songs left after ‘DIE TRYING,’ and they all drag on badly. They make getting through the final stretch of the album a nightmare. Truly, some $ome $leepy $ongs 4 U.
