DRAKE TAKE CARE ALBUM COVER UPDATE

(Drake reportedly had a vinyl copy of Blake's debut LP on display in the studio while recording Take Care.) Its subtlety is a direct rebuke to the rash of in-the-red Eurotrance waveforms clogging up radio dials. This is sensuous music that breathes heavy somewhere between UGK's deep funk, quiet-storm 90s R&B, and James Blake-inspired minimalism. While the bombastic style of producer Lex Luger's work with Rick Ross and Waka Flocka Flame threatened to turn the tide on Drake and 40's moody atmospherics last summer, the pair stick to their gut here and delve further into smooth piano and muffled drums, fully committed to the idea of doing more with less. Thank Me Later banked on a sonic tableau that was slow and sensual and dark- equal parts Aaliyah and the xx- and Take Care takes that aesthetic to an even more rewarding place, spearheaded by Drake's go-to producer Noah '40' Shebib, who gets a writing and production credit on almost every song. Just as his thematic concerns have become richer, so has the music backing them up. Even when staring at a pair of unnatural breasts, he highlights the incision rather than the size: 'Brand new girl and she still growing/ Brand new titties, stitches still showing/ Yeah, and she just praying that it heals good/ I'm 'bout to fuck and I'm just praying that it feels good.' 'I mean, sure, there's some bills and taxes I'm still evading/ But I blew six million on myself, and I feel amazing.' And on 'HYFR (Hell Ya Fucking Right)', he all but gives away his hand, turning his sadness into strategy: 'What have I learned since getting richer?/ I learned working with the negatives could make for better pictures.' And while he claims 'I think I like who I'm becoming' on 'Crew Love'- about as ringing an endorsement you'll get from a guy so bent on exposing his own disappointments- he's still more interested in contradiction than triumph.

'They say more money more problems, my nigga, don't believe it,' he raps on closer 'The Ride'. While he expressed wonderfully wounded trepidations about his sudden rise on Thank Me Later, he's learning to embrace it more here. This time around, Drake has a better grasp on his own notoriety and the mind-fucks that come with it. When he's not making the most epic drunk-dial song in pop history with 'Marvins Room', he's openly pleading with former flame Rihanna on the record's title track, or duetting with Twitter wife Nicki Minaj on 'Make Me Proud' only to call out such publicity-baiting 'relationships' two tracks later, where he raps, 'It look like we in love, but only on camera.' With its startlingly frank talk and endless heartbreak, Take Care often reads like a string of especially vulnerable- and sometimes embarrassing- Missed Connections. While fame causes some to withdraw and cling to what little privacy they have left, this 25-year-old Canadian's penchant for poetic oversharing has only been emboldened by his success. 'They take the greats from the past and compare us/ I wonder if they'd ever survive in this era,' he contemplates on the album, 'In a time where it's recreation/ To pull all your skeletons out the closet like Halloween decorations.' We can thank Kanye West for legitimately kicking off this open-book hip-hop era, and it's increasingly apparent that Drake is the most engaging new rap star since Ye. In this age of reality television, 24-hour celebrity news, and second-to-second documentation- where behind-the-scenes sagas mix with what's on screen and on record, creating an ever-morphing, ever-more-self-aware new normal- Drake is an apt avatar.

DRAKE TAKE CARE ALBUM COVER UPDATE

Running with Gaye's ghost, Drake offers a profane update of his forebear's twisted heart: 'Fuck that nigga that you love so bad/ I know you still think about the times we had,' he sings on the insidious hook of 'Marvins Room', a song recorded in the same studio where Gaye originally exposed his own unedited thoughts more than three decades ago. The same could be said of Drake, whose unrepentant navel-gazing and obsession with lost love reach new levels on his second proper LP, Take Care.

Drake take care album cover