Sorry, Drake, but there’s no trophy for being featured on the Jukebox twenty-nine times…

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Crystal Leww: Whether or not you like “Trophies” has everything to do with whether or not the sound of those horns combined with the image of Drake doing the Haters Gonna Hate dance makes you wanna join in or roll your eyes.
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David Sheffieck: I’d been feeling like Drake was growing on me, but this shocked me back to my senses: lazy and hollow and not even hitting his usual smooth flow, this is the sort of song that doesn’t even surprise when it rhymes song with song four times at the end of the song.
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Alfred Soto: Until Drake actually said “truffles,” I thought that’s what the song was titled! We need good songs about truffles. Rapping over synth brass and a booming beat that gets chopped into appropriate EDM-size slices midpoint, Young Money is in his own world. It’s like no one bothered introducing them. Sure as shit this ain’t a love song.
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Anthony Easton: The rat-a-tat sounds near the end of this, just like pushing through instead of giving up, are such a precise way of working through the exhaustion of the rest of the song. Even better, it overpowers Drake’s negligible contribution. 
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Patrick St. Michel: Weird that this song hinges around the idea there are no trophies for what Drake does, yet he can’t stop talking about his massive house. Beat’s OK, though.
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Will Adams: The verses of “Trophies” sport a fantastic pre-game fanfare, the kind of horns-n-drums beats I remember listening to before middle school basketball games to pump me up. Shame that Drake sucks out all of the fun with his dour timbre and minor chord progression for the hook.
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Katherine St Asaph: Thirty Seconds of Awesome Double-Timed Snippetizing ft. Drake Being Proud of Shit Even He Admits He’s Supposed to Do Without Fanfare. Young Money might as well be uncredited.
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Megan Harrington: The text is “I’m just tryin’ to stay alive and take care of my people/And they don’t have no award for that, trophies, trophies” but the subtext is “The best things in life are free/But you can keep them for the birds and bees/Now give me money.” Drake’s a master of misdirection, and he’s performed this same trick in the past (“I wear every single chain even when I’m in the house”). While we might take him at his word that all the plaudits pale in comparison to living out his Jesus fantasy, there’s a current underneath all the humbleness that is sucking in money like a Hoover. He frames that current with gratefulness which further endears his fanbase and suddenly he’s got the money and the trophies. I would not be surprised if right now MTV is bronzing a moon man for the “Just Such An All Around Best Nice Guy” category, which Drake has already won. 
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Brad Shoup: He really undercuts the triumph, but not in a way that’s the best kind of on-brand approach. There’s the evitably inevitable part where the beat drops out and he gets all “Fancy” on us, but the track broods better than he ever has, and it just keeps brooding to the end. I kinda wish it had taken Young Money’s slot.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Macklemore won the Grammy for Best Rap Album and apologised via text to KENDRICK REAL (#NeverForget), feeling like he had just pulled a fast one on the people’s favourite. Whether he did or not is all a matter of personal taste and perspective, but Drake wanted to remind people that there were three other nominees in that category. Speaking to Rolling Stone earlier this year, he shared his opinion, scoffing at the post-awards mea culpa: “That shit made me feel funny. No, in that case, you robbed everybody. We all need text messages!” He has a point. Even though “Trophies” predates the Grammy nominations, it feels equal parts petulant and clear-eyed over an industry’s praise. Over Hit-Boy’s fanfare (much regal, very king, wow) Drake is stunting out of control, funnier and looser than he usually allows himself to be. “I use a walkie-talkie just to get a beverage!” he bellows at one point, marveling at the sheer ridiculousness of his abode. When the horns drop into a minor-key synth, he is adamant on the hook: “I’m just tryna stay alive and take care of my people / …ain’t no envelopes to open, I just do it cos I’m s’posed to”. This is hip-hop, of course, where every man is a king of his own domain — even when they still have to claim fealty to Lil Wayne and Birdman. “Trophies” is a quick nudge to remind people that he ranks above the competition; at least deserving of a dumb text message for getting a Grammy juxed and at most deserving of your bows.
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David Turner: “Did y’all boys not get the memo?” “Did y’all nigga not hear the horns?” Drizzy did call this a “poppin’ champagne in the tub song?” He told ya’ll mafuckers. This ain’t what you want. Y’all need this Drizzy anthem. Knock the dirt off. This isn’t aspiration. Success, whatever it means, is the inspiration.
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