Kanye West’s Donda and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy (CLB) were two of the most anticipated music albums of the year. Both albums had delayed debuts, and finally came out only five days apart. Fans of both artists were on the edge of their seats to see if the albums could live up to the hype and potentially become the album of the year.
The albums have totally different tones and meanings; perhaps the only similarity these albums might share is the hip-hop genre. Both album covers received criticism for being basic and even “lazy,” as some say.
“I think there was pretty much no effort put into the album covers. One is a plain black screen and the other just pregnant women emojis,” Walker Prince, a junior at Walter Johnson High School, said.
Donda, West’s tenth studio album, is a tribute album to his late mother, Donda West. The album contains elements of gospel, trap and progressive rap. The intro track of the album, Donda Chant, is 52 seconds long and repeats the word “Donda” over and over again with different pitches and frequencies every time. It symbolizes West’s mother’s last heartbeats and the impact that it had on him.
The album does not contain profanity and is influenced by his religious beliefs. It consists of a total of 27 songs with 35 features from different artists. Whether they are big artists or upcoming small but talented artists, West showed that he is not afraid of diversifying his music and working with lesser known artists. Some notable popular tracks from the album, like “Hurricane,” “Off The Grid,” “Praise God” and “Jail” all had famous features, such as The Weeknd, Travis Scott, Jay Z, Playboi Carti and more. This made some fans question if the album relies too heavily on the features.
CLB, Drake’s sixth studio album, is a completely different album. Although there is no confirmation on what it could be about, the name “Certified Lover Boy” itself is self-explanatory. Many believe that this album could be about Drake’s love life and his views on romance.
The album contains the genres rap, contemporary R&B, pop-rap, contemporary rap and more. It consists of 21 songs with 15 features. Some popular tracks from the album like “Way 2 Sexy,” “Champagne Poetry,” “Girls Want Girls” and “Fair Trade” had features similar to West’s album. Although there are many features on the album, Drake’s presence in the album is noticeably larger than Kanye’s presence in Donda.
Since its initial release, Drake had been dominating the world charts and breaking records, but some fans have complained about a lack of originality. A Reddit user criticized, “I no longer entertain any Kanye vs Drake debates. Kanye can’t be 44 and still pushing boundaries and Drake struggling to switch beats he used for years.” This comment received over 500 upvotes.
These two albums battle not only for fans, but also for commercial success. According to the New York Times, “[Drake’s] latest album debuted with the equivalent of 613,000 sales in the United States, easily beating Kanye West’s total of 309,000 just one week ago.” But Donda out-streamed it the second week: Hot New Hip Hop reports that “Drake blew Kanye out of the water with first-day streams, clocking in at 153 million as opposed to Kanye’s 94 million. On the second day though, Kanye’s streams grew to over 102 million, while Drake’s dwindled dramatically, reducing to 89 million. At this rate, it feels like Certified Lover Boy could be here and gone within a few weeks, while Donda is continuing to strive.”
Despite the contentious debate, both artists are too big to fail. Even if they did release utterly bad albums they would still hold strong positions in the charts. Fans will still debate which album is better, but for most, it is safe to say that the music world is happy just to see the artists back in the industry and making music again.
Written by Ishaan Ramola of Walter Johnson High School
Photo courtesy of Anton Mak via Creative Commons