“Take Care(Deluxe)[Explicit]”乐评+Pitchfork杂志乐评原文
Drake最有意思的、最出众的才华，绝对是他总是知道该怎么制作一张真正意义上的专辑，而不是和很多音乐人，尤其是刚刚踏入乐坛的音乐人一样，只是简单地把一段时期的音乐灵感汇集、拼凑在一起，或者将自己灵感的重心有意无意地向某个角度靠拢，事实上却显得零零散散，不知所云。（至少在“Take Care”中Drake向我们展示了一个截然不同的有趣结局，即被专辑定义的音乐确实应当在专辑的层面实现一种连续性，或者说一种无处不在的和谐和彼此琴瑟和鸣的理想）Drake懂得专辑的真正意义，尽管大部分情况下，在互联网和流媒体碎片化的背景下，这样的做法似乎已经失去了意义，关于特定理念的音乐，你甚至可以选择收听Apple Music的专业团队每周为你选择的，从四面八方蜂拥而至的个性定制单曲组合（不过这样逆向的追求也正是这张专辑令人感动的主要原因）。
“We'll Be Fine”和“Make Me Proud ”是这样一对令人兴奋的组合：“We'll Be Fine”采取了这张专辑中最基本的，贯穿始终的，失落的爱情偶像（Drake呆坐在金碧辉煌的豪华房间里面，低着头对着自己的金项链发愣，下垂的眼睛要眯成缝，没有人会质疑这一切是关于失恋的沮丧的，或者更准确地说是关于恋情的失落的），紧接着“Make Me Proud ”中Drake 和Nicki Minaj则展现了令人吃惊的亲密，他们互相欣赏，对视的眼神中充满迷恋和激情（Bruno Mars和Lady Gaga在“Die With A Smile”中展现了合作单曲的大多数标准，即共同语言，人们通常情况下不会想到让合作的双方划清界限，然后碰撞，这在空间的层次上打破了故有的传统）。 之后的“Camera/Good Ones Go Interlude ((Explicit)”和““Doing It Wrong(Explicit)”诉诸更加具体的手段，通过情节衔接讲述了一个属于“They Know They Know”权贵世界的，冰冷稀疏的桃红趣闻。
当然不要忘记Drake在这张专辑中无处不在的，词/曲/制作元素的呼应（包括十三年后被Kendrick Lamar血喷的“OVO”），停在各个角落的Mercedes仅仅是冰山一角,这让你很难将这张专辑中任何一首歌看作是独立的存在，他们确实被紧密联系在了一起，欢呼着迎接着他们共同的主题，一个鲜明的整体。“Over My Dead Body”，Drake振动的、华丽的表演，浓稠的节奏与和声，自我陶醉的制作自第一首试听起就预言了，虽然我不能说完全欣赏，却令人钦佩的宏大缪斯，像金线一样串起了“Take Care”的灵魂。Lil Wayne作为世纪之交最恬不知耻和夸张的嘻哈艺人，却在“The Real Her(Explicit)”中被消音，服务于滑稽、抒情的金属摩擦，但这绝对不是什么谦逊和落魄-接下来的“HYFR(Hell Ya Fucking Right)(Explicit)”真正意义上是Lil Wayne大嘴巴的主场，Drake想要哪怕最细节的和谐和呼应感。“The Motto（Explicit)”中低沉的日本街头制作（本世纪初这种异域风情被引入了美国，Missy Elliot等人率先对其进行应用）和快节奏的独白,与“Look What You've Done(Explicit)”中拖着疲惫步伐的呻吟、喘息和仿佛从日漫中走出来的钢琴底料也仿佛磁铁一样吸在了一起，另一方面也展示了Drake在这张专辑中广泛合作和博采众长的野心。
Drake在这张专辑中显示了对最后三十秒纯粹音符的喜爱（这里粉丝们能够在歌曲的末尾充分享受制作创意简要的提纯，就像Kanye West的“Stronger”，不过没有那么具有攻击性，那么意味难尽）这让播放列表的切换像是一场紧凑到使人窒息的爆炸，也是一次次宗教仪式般的灵感接力。与Rihanna 合作的主打单曲“Take Care”使用老派迪斯科和随性、冲动的陷阱组合，揭示了专辑最亢奋和喜怒无常的一面。在这张专辑中Drake痴迷般地寻找和谐感，不过他不会止步于美感逻辑的盛筵，纵观专辑，Drake不像其他99%的人那样让一首歌围绕着单一的思路转（即使是变形这点仍然不改），他总是在曲目的某个不能预判的位置突然转变思路。这样的随意性，考虑到嘻哈的血统，说暴躁也许更加恰当，这样的暴躁是无所顾忌的，不是爵士即兴中所蕴含的严谨，只是冲昏了头脑。Drake在“Under Ground Kings(Explicit)”中设计的环绕的键盘莫比乌斯环（和粗糙、野蛮的独白“How I Know how’d I know that’s me on some psychic sh*t”“And rapping rapping an b**ches until all of us switches ”、与The Weekend 合作“Crew Love（Explicit)”中开头电子轰炸和晶莹剔透的抒情，都是随意拼接的美妙恶果，你只能眼睁睁地看着自己可怜的底线被玩弄、践踏。（让我想到了Bad Bunny “Safaera(Explicit)”）
关于这张专辑最令人津津乐道的最后一点是，21世纪嘻哈界（它总是被巨擎的冲突和各类绯闻涂抹得声名狼藉）最知名的一对冤大头，Drake和Kendrick Lamar，在这张专辑中合作了单曲“Buried Alive Interlude ”（前奏合成器的锋利可以割破你的额头）。Kendrick Lamar“Tryna Strike a chord and it’s probably A-Minor”所攻击的身份认同问题，并没有在这首歌中表现出来，只是物是人非之余显得讽刺。不过Drake自我折磨的决心不得不让我瞠目结舌，他和Rick Ross合作的单曲“Lord Knows”直接实现了对自己Black &White？身份认同纠结不安的剖析。“I'm more concerned what n***as thinkin' about Christmas in August”（圣诞节是白人基督教节日，基督教伴随殖民统治成为非裔宗教，并且直接催生了黑人流行音乐的诞生）、““I'm a descendent of either Marley or Hendrix(Bob Marley(鲍勃马利）是牙买加黑白混血<和Drake一样>，音乐家，民族英雄，Jimi Hendrix（吉米亨德里克斯）是黑色皮肤的摇滚艺人，嬉皮士时代的白人偶像，前两者都表达了对归宿的迷茫）“Bought a white Ghost now sh*t is getting spooky ”(白色幽灵象征着对自己白色血统的不安和恐惧）“Only fat ni**a in the sauna with Jews (对犹太/非裔混血嫌弃的讽刺）……… 这些也反映在了这张专辑的其他部分里，加曲“Hate Sleeping Alone”中Drake向女孩央求“One more Chance to make it right”,这样截然不同的价值观自然难与“Papa was a rolling stone ”产生共鸣；“Marvin’s Room”结尾沉重光滑的钢琴独奏也和Little Raychard的热情蓝调搭不上边，展示了对内向文化浓厚的兴趣。
“Money Over Everything ”表明“Take Care”仍然是街头音乐,尽管事实频频摇头。
Pitchfork乐评原文：
With his penchant for poetic over-sharing, Drake is an apt avatar for the era of reality television and 24-hour self-documentation. Backed by lush and moody beats, Take Care finds him putting his talents to use on his strongest set of songs so far.
In 1976, Marvin Gaye holed up in his Hollywood studio and began recording Here, My Dear, a brutally candid album-length dissection of his divorce from wife Anna Gordy. The soul great found beauty within the wreckage, and the album doubled as an emotional exorcism that pushed out pain, anger, regret, spite, vengeance. "Memories haunt you all the time/ I will never leave your mind," he threatens on a song called "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You". Reviewing the album upon its release in 1978, critic Robert Christgau wrote, "Because Gaye's self-involvement is so open and unmediated... it retains unusual documentary charm."
The same could be said of Drake, whose unrepentant navel-gazing and obsession with lost love reach new levels on his second proper LP, Take Care. Running with Gaye's ghost, Drake offers a profane update of his forebear's twisted heart: "Fuck that nigga that you love so bad/ I know you still think about the times we had," he sings on the insidious hook of "Marvins Room", a song recorded in the same studio where Gaye originally exposed his own unedited thoughts more than three decades ago.
In this age of reality television, 24-hour celebrity news, and second-to-second documentation-- where behind-the-scenes sagas mix with what's on screen and on record, creating an ever-morphing, ever-more-self-aware new normal-- Drake is an apt avatar. Naturally, he knows this, too. "They take the greats from the past and compare us/ I wonder if they'd ever survive in this era," he contemplates on the album, "In a time where it's recreation/ To pull all your skeletons out the closet like Halloween decorations." We can thank Kanye West for legitimately kicking off this open-book hip-hop era, and it's increasingly apparent that Drake is the most engaging new rap star since Ye. While fame causes some to withdraw and cling to what little privacy they have left, this 25-year-old Canadian's penchant for poetic oversharing has only been emboldened by his success. When he's not making the most epic drunk-dial song in pop history with "Marvins Room", he's openly pleading with former flame Rihanna on the record's title track, or duetting with Twitter wife Nicki Minaj on "Make Me Proud" only to call out such publicity-baiting "relationships" two tracks later, where he raps, "It look like we in love, but only on camera." With its startlingly frank talk and endless heartbreak, Take Care often reads like a string of especially vulnerable-- and sometimes embarrassing-- Missed Connections.
This time around, Drake has a better grasp on his own notoriety and the mind-fucks that come with it. While he expressed wonderfully wounded trepidations about his sudden rise on Thank Me Later, he's learning to embrace it more here. "They say more money more problems, my nigga, don't believe it," he raps on closer "The Ride". "I mean, sure, there's some bills and taxes I'm still evading/ But I blew six million on myself, and I feel amazing." And on "HYFR (Hell Ya Fucking Right)", he all but gives away his hand, turning his sadness into strategy: "What have I learned since getting richer?/ I learned working with the negatives could make for better pictures." And while he claims "I think I like who I'm becoming" on "Crew Love"-- about as ringing an endorsement you'll get from a guy so bent on exposing his own disappointments-- he's still more interested in contradiction than triumph. Even when staring at a pair of unnatural breasts, he highlights the incision rather than the size: "Brand new girl and she still growing/ Brand new titties, stitches still showing/ Yeah, and she just praying that it heals good/ I'm 'bout to fuck and I'm just praying that it feels good."
Just as his thematic concerns have become richer, so has the music backing them up. Thank Me Later banked on a sonic tableau that was slow and sensual and dark-- equal parts Aaliyah and the xx-- and Take Care takes that aesthetic to an even more rewarding place, spearheaded by Drake's go-to producer Noah "40" Shebib, who gets a writing and production credit on almost every song. While the bombastic style of producer Lex Luger's work with Rick Ross and Waka Flocka Flame threatened to turn the tide on Drake and 40's moody atmospherics last summer, the pair stick to their gut here and delve further into smooth piano and muffled drums, fully committed to the idea of doing more with less. This is sensuous music that breathes heavy somewhere between UGK's deep funk, quiet-storm 90s R&B, and James Blake-inspired minimalism. (Drake reportedly had a vinyl copy of Blake's debut LP on display in the studio while recording Take Care.) Its subtlety is a direct rebuke to the rash of in-the-red Eurotrance waveforms clogging up radio dials. Even the more upbeat tracks take pains not to rely on a simple thump. "Take Care" features Rihanna and a four-four beat, but the singer shows off her little-heard whispering delivery and the instrumental comes courtesy of the xx's Jamie xx, who nimbly tailors his remix of Gil Scott-Heron's "I'll Take Care of You" for the occasion.
Drake's worked on his own technical abilities, too, and both his rapping and singing are better than ever here. Notably, he only brandishes the hashtag flow he quickly became famous (or infamous) for over the last few years, turning it into a knowing knock on copycats: "Man, all of your flows bore me/ Paint drying." And he breathlessly runs through the opening verse on the vicious "HYFR" at a speed that would likely garner respect fromBusta Rhymes. And then there's "Doing It Wrong", a brilliant, barely there slow jam that borrows some lyrics from an unlikely source (Don "American Pie" McLean's twangy 1977 track "The Wrong Thing to Do") and features an unlikely guest inStevie Wonder. Fitting the album's classy, unshowy demeanor, Wonder is tapped not to sing but play harmonica-- and uncharacteristically downcast harmonica at that-- for the track's crushing denouement.The song hasDrake chronicling the conflicting emotions of a difficult breakup and giving us his finest singing to date. His words are simple, universal, true: "We live in a generation of not being in love, and not being together/ But we sure make it feel like we're together/ 'Cause we're scared to see each other with somebody else." Elsewhere,André 3000referencesAdele's unimpeachable"Someone Like You"in one of the album's many well-placed guest verses; "Doing It Wrong" deserves to follow that song as pop's next Great Heartbroken Ballad.
The cover of Take Care shows its star sitting at a table, dejected and surrounded by gold, like a hip-hop Midas. Considering some of the money-doesn't-buy-you-happiness sentiments inside, the picture is apropos enough. But it's much too obvious to truly represent what Drake and his crew have done here. A better image would be the grainy, amateur photo he released with "Marvins Room" when he originally leaked it in June, which shows the rapper walking away from a group of private jets, his face obscured by a puff of smoke making its way up to an overcast sky. It lets his reality do the heavy lifting while Drake stands by, taking it all in.
