Drake, "Views"

“VIEWS”

OVO Sound / Cash Money Records

Expectation management is a complicated pop-music game, and Drake has dealt himself a challenging hand with “Views,” the rapper’s long-awaited fourth official album.

The 29-year-old Canadian rapper and singer from Toronto, whose fluid vocal versatility is a big part of his appeal, explained in an interview on Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio that he structured the album “around the change of the seasons in our city … I thought it was important to make the album here during the winter.”

Perhaps that’s why “Views” is so subdued. The album features a number of producers, but the dominant collaborator is Drake’s longtime helpmate Noah “40” Shebib. And the spare, buzzing backdrops on most of the 20 tracks — including “Hotline Bling,” which feels out of place — set a contemplative mood more suitable for cozying up by the fire than tearing down the highway in a Bugatti.

On the album’s first track, “Keep the Family Close,” Drake is rhyming over an enticing beat that’s evocative of the James Bond theme. “All of my ‘let’s-just-be-friends’ are friends I don’t have anymore,” he realizes, sounding bruised.

That bunker mentality is familiar in hip-hop. The Kanye West-coproduced track here is called “U With Me?” “My enemies want to be friends with my other enemies,” Drake raps in “Hype.” “I don’t let it get to me.”

“Views” is not an album of bangers; it’s a blue-mood piece that supposes downcast music is the most serious. At 82 minutes, it goes on too long. But, like Rihanna’s “Anti,” the commercial prospects of “Views” shouldn’t be underestimated.

— Dan Deluca,

The Philadelphia Inquirer