The Singles Jukebox

“You get a metronome! You get a metronome!”

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[4.82]

Cassy Gress: All right, I don’t get Drake. I know half the internet is crazy about Drake, but I honestly can’t tell if it’s actually Drake they like or if it’s just his big dopey grin and memeability. Do people actually nod their heads and go “yeah that shit’s tight” to stuff that sounds like this? There is a beat and some Tubular Bells, then the first run through I could hear no correlation at all between Drake’s flow and the beat; second run I can hear it, but it’s so lazily rhythmic that I missed it the first time. Maybe it’s one of those things that sounds like no effort was involved but secretly tons of effort was involved and that’s the whole point. Maybe it’s just that I can’t see Drake as “hard” no matter how many stars he wishes on; I just see angora sweaters and kittens and 1992 laser photo backdrops. There’s been a number of songs lately that are like this, that are just kind of some background noise, and a simple beat, and someone sing-talking haphazardly over it all, and everybody goes nuts, and it is just not working for me one bit. Metronomes for everyone. And singing lessons.
[3]

Jibril Yassin: Paranoid boasting: check. Moody beat-switching: check. Flow jacking: check. This sounds like a Drake song with nothing new to offer. In his shots at others, there’s a loaded intent in place and it’s nice. But hearing Drake try and get aggressive is nice in the way you’d congratulate a cute dog for snarling — where was this when “Back to Back” came out? 
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Like Jay Z and Biggie before him, Drake has an uncanny ability to straddle the worlds of crowd-pleasing pop star and real hip-hop. I know many disagree, those who insist on calling him “soft,” but the reality is that the guy can spit. Meek Mill, however, is the epitome of soft — and B-list. It’s amusing to me the way Meek keeps coming for Drake, because Drake kills him every time, and “Summer Sixteen” is another example. Love the almost-Exorcist riff he raps over in the second half, and the balls he has to reference President Obama (his rhymes are like the Prez’s whips: “bulletproof”), Jay Z, and having a “bigger pool” than Kanye. This is a reminder that he can still go hard when he wants to — and that Views from the 6 isn’t gonna do anything to damage his rep.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Drake’s beef with Meek Mill is wack. It’s produced no good music from either party and a whole bunch of embarrassing memes. Drake’s offhand shots at Tyga and Kanye last year in “6PM in New York” were harder-edged than anything he’s thrown at his actual named rival. And speaking of Kanye, is this water-feature dick-measuring a non-reply to Kanye’s not-a-diss that was the Drake-aping “Facts”? On that count, Drake demures, “Ye’s pool is nice, mine’s just bigger,” which reminds me in its diplomatic meticulousness of Jay in “No Hook,” when he was all “I’m more Frank Lucas than Ludacris/And Luda’s my dude, I ain’t tryna diss,” only that was a carefully layered verse about authenticity and mythology, whereas Drake’s just sneak-dissing a man who’s too preoccupied with his own beef with an athletic-wear corporation to care. “I’m just a sicko, a real sicko when you get to know me,” he raps early on, and there’s a little thrill there; the frisson that he might unintentionally be giving something of himself away. But the rest? This is boring. I’m bored.
[3]

Crystal Leww: I would be shouting about where Views from the 6 is, but we just went through a week of Kanye album release and you know what? This is okay. “Summer Sixteen” is thoroughly unremarkable: standard 40 & Boi-1da production, Drake verses that drop a sundry of references to Kanye West’s pool, Chubbs, the 6, and his beef with Meek Mill, and a DJ Khaled outro. It’s boring, but this isn’t embarrassing. 
[5]

Andy Hutchins: At his best, Drake is featherweight, middleweight, and heavyweight, deft enough for syllable-crammed flurries landed over stormy instrumentals like both halves of “Summer Sixteen,” but equipped with deep knowledge of the ring and his opponents and a penchant for piercing defenses. All of those things make TKO tracks like this one possible, but so do the arrogance built off a winning streak nearing a decade, the insecurity that leads to lacing up weighted gloves to play dirty, and the shamelessness that allows Drake to boast about all of the above. Drake beat Meek Mill last summer by responding to tweets with overwhelming force, yes, but also by calling a do-over on a limp first diss by releasing “Back to Back” and pretending he just wanted to retaliate with lethality; seven months later, with minimal provocation since, here’s an entire verse of haymakers for Meek that doesn’t even aim all of them at him. It begins with one of the last great Obama references — and boldest shots at him — of his presidency, lingers on the answer to a rhetorical question, and dispenses with the fiction that Drake identifies more with his “hometown” Toronto Raptors than the ethereal Golden State Warriors, who rule their game like he aspires to rule his, and sometimes does. The second verse finds Drake shadowboxing throne-holders of old, claiming a city and shaming a pool — and he’s doing it over a sample he’s already stamped to death. There’s no fat here until Khaled speaks, just three and a half minutes of wartime speechifying over swirling synths and brittle snares. Break’s over.
[9]

Alfred Soto: Too garrulous as usual, but more than usual his vocal sounds stapled onto the musical track: it’s too fast or he’s too slow. Then the rhythm changes to match his petulance — Aubrey Graham’s “Moment of Clarity.” “You would love it if I went away or didn’t say nothing else/How am I keeping it real by keeping this shit to myself?” he drawls, asking a question I’d accept from someone not Aubrey Graham.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: At long last I have no feelings about Drake, whether positive or negative. My interest in his music comes down entirely to whether I like the specific production of the individual song. This one’s just okay.
[5]

Brad Shoup: For some reason, the sample sources have producer credits at the moment. Brian Bennett’s library-music twinkle gets the second half sounding like a broadcast-TV true-crime special. Which makes sense: I usually don’t have the patience to learn how a corporation thinks someone died. 
[4]

Megan Harrington: Ghosts are souls with unfinished business. Souls that didn’t say goodbye. Souls torn from the living too soon. Souls that want revenge. Like all his best tracks, “Summer Sixteen” has at least a palmful of powerfully memorable moments (maybe you’re thinking of celebrity pools right now) and like his recent highlights, it’s almost certainly not going to be included on Views From the Six. “Summer Sixteen” is ephemeral without being disposable, guided by the watery croon that promises it’s “looking for revenge.” Isn’t Drake already the biggest, the greatest, and by his own admission bulletproof? His restless spirit isn’t after justice, doesn’t know fairness, chases bloody vengeance. Mind the way the floorboards creak.  
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: The saddest of all beef, the flailingest of all tracks, the Fucking-est of all Drake.
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