The Singles Jukebox

Is this the 21st century Roxanne wars, or something?

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[4.00]

Jer Fairall: A wobbly beat that sounds perpetually on the verge of derailing, a moaning trumpet that barely makes its sorry presence known, an anticlimax of a piano outro and Drake hesitantly half-singing and half-rapping like he doesn’t know if the whole thing’s gonna disintegrate before he gets to the end of it; can we at least give this guy some credit for taking fairly unpopular risks at this precarious stage in his career?  We certainly can’t give him much for these lyrics, which are every bit as embarrassing as a late-night drunk dial and just as worthy of being tracked down and erased before they can come back to haunt anyone involved.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Drake is apparently a sad drunk, and for an artist with a natural melancholia anyway, he comes off flat, not miserable, when under the influence. Noah “40” Shebib’s beat is one of the most intriguingly wispy he’s come up with, but when it’s in the hands of a singer who sounds on the cusp of passing out, it doesn’t cohere into much of a song. At his best, Drake carefully balances bravado and vulnerability to express ennui. “Marvin’s Room” is smart in concept, but pales in comparison with the likes of “Houstatlantavegas” or “Successful.”
[5]

Martin Skidmore: I am very close to loving this. It’s hugely subdued and melancholy, with a really gripping pulsey production from Noah Shebib, sad and moving, with an emotive song over the top of it. If only someone else were singing it: Drake sounds a touch flat and droney, apart from a rap verse which feels just a touch too bright, although I do like the soul-searching ideas. Replace Drake with Cee-Lo (in the right mood/mode) or R Kelly and this could be a masterpiece.
[8]

Anthony Easton: I don’t think that Drake getting quite a lot of pussy is a melancholic tragedy that deserves a mopey anthem. 
[0]

Jake Cleland: Drake is a truly terrible lyricist in the kind of way a lot of new writers are. He isn’t economical, he takes too long to say not that much and he does nothing to compel the listener to endure his whining. The instrumentation is almost interesting enough to make up for it though; the throbbing beat borrows from latter-day Kanye and apart from the god-awful line “Fuuuuck thaaat niggaaaaa that you love so baaaad” it could be a pre-mixed demo of an 808’s b-side — though even Kanye knew to move on from that. Either go hard and dirty or grandiose and operatic. Drake’s adolescent whimpering is neither. Someone get the kid a moleskine.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: “Marvin’s Room” is the equivalent of a Henry V speech grafted into Lysistrata, except the world’s women simply need to be roused to stop fucking Drake. Never more unto his breeches, dear friends, never more. Close your walls up from his Toronto dick. And for god’s sake, buy Noah Shebib a puppy.
[4]

Ian Mathers: The funny thing is, when I listen to something like “Novocane” or The Weeknd I think to myself, “Wow, what a good job this guy does grappling with this stuff; first world problems, sure, but he’s got me pinned right between sympathy and revulsion. Good job.” And yet when I hear Drake do the same thing, I think “What a jackass.” Give him credit for this, if nothing else: he’s the only artist talking about the perils of sudden fame where I actually think that both of us, artist and audience, would be better off if the ride weren’t so rough. Usually it seems like either the artist is exaggerating or the result is good enough that I’m selfishly pleased that we have it; with Drake, I believe he really is having a rough time of it, and the results aren’t worth the angst. At least the production is nice, even if “and I’ll start hating only if you make me” might be the single most purely selfish sentence I’ve heard on the Jukebox to date. Or wait, maybe it’s “I need someone to put this weight on.”
[5]

Alfred Soto: Frank Ocean would kill for Drake’s market share: alone in the club, hammered, in search of love, chased by a spare beat. Drake says he’s not “conscious of making monsters” of the women he fucks and leaves — as surprising an admission as him admitting he stares at their tits and ass before deciding to hit on them. Because he asks for no sympathy and neither the beats nor lyrics conspire to give him any, this is as close to a confession as any of us could expect from a widely ridiculed superstar. He must suspect his plight isn’t as interesting as he thinks when he’s not on a Diddy album.
[6]

Zach Lyon: I’m thinking of Jason Segel, in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, describing his job as a composer for a CSI-esque procedural: it’s not music, it’s just tones. CSI is the worst, but it makes those tones sound a hell of a lot more useful than Drake’s whiny oversexed baby act can.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Odd, I thought Marvin’s room held dozens of ethereal BGVs pushing songs outward. Not so for the dourest entertainer under 25, who’s abandoned mixtape-fodder wordplay in favor of generic famescapes. Lightly warping synthbeds, perfunctory raps that you can’t even pin on a protege… the spareness is gonna make this track’s entertainment value decay even faster. Hey Drake, AA has more steps than the first.
[3]