Review Summary: "If You're Reading This, It's Too Late" was Drake's peak from when he was almost inescapable for a time, as both artist and personality.
It was late July, two years ago from my vantage point - 2015. I was finally back in my hometown for the first time in 2 years since I’d moved away, and it was just amazing to return, to see all the people and places that I’d missed so, so badly. The fluorescent lights shone as I made my way through the aisles of a two-story Target in San Diego, California, passing shoppers as I brought myself to the ever-so-shrinking CD section. I glanced around as I located what I needed, picking it up, seeing that it had some sort of security tag on it that my Target never included with albums. Interesting. I walked it back over to the checkout, buying it as I walked myself back to the mall, meeting with some of my friends I hadn’t seen in years. In my bag, I was carrying an album that pretty much defined my summer.
It’s hard to describe how omnipresent Drake was at the time, not just as a rapper, but as an entertainer; a figure most everyone seemed to be watching. He still may be a huge draw today, but
More Life wasn’t getting everyone and their mother listening the way that
If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late was when it came out. It was pretty much impossible to escape when everyone was riffing off the album cover and creating their own variations on it. I’d go online and it was all over Facebook… Twitter… Tumblr. I’d be walking around the halls in the high school I was in and I’d see the format being used on campaign posters for students running for places in the student body. When Drake launched into a beef with Meek Mill in the middle of my visit back to my hometown, it was the event of the summer; though everybody knew that it was pretty much no contest. Drake was the biggest rapper in the world. Meek wasn’t.
If You’re Reading This encapsulated this entire era perfectly; both for Drake having to deal with his inescapability, and for me looking back at a summer now long gone for better or for worse. It was what got me finally listening to Drake, even after he released the widely influential
Take Care and followed it up with the uber-popular
Nothing Was the Same. When he’s rapping on songs like “Legend”, “10 Bands”, and “Energy”, he’s analyzing his ubiquity, sometimes recognizing that he’s going to have to come down from it all eventually. He’s seeing the beginning of the comedown while nobody else could tell what was coming.
Flash forward to 2016, towards the end of April. My junior year of high school was coming to a close, and I was on a bus with about 40-50 other people coming back from a band trip to Disneyland. The sun was starting to set, the landscape incredibly beautiful as Coldplay’s
X&Y finished up and I needed to put on something else to listen to while staring out the window of the bus as it rolled down the 99. So I chose
If You’re Reading This. It all just blended perfectly with the rumble and hum of the bus as I looked past who was sitting next to me, just staring out the giant window to the flat, almost infinite farmlands and billboards with Bible verses plastered on top of them; zoning out to the indescribable ambience and atmosphere of songs like “Company” and “Madonna”. Drake’s always been wonderful at making these kinds of songs, and on
If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late, they’re able to shine impeccably.
If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late is auditory perfection for when it’s 3 AM and you’re alone in your room, Christmas lights on the walls as you gaze into your computer screen, looking at pictures from years ago just to pass the time. It’s going to be something we’ll look back at years from now as Drake’s highest cultural point, his recognition of his own ubiquity as Drake turned to look back on his past, pondering where exactly he was going next.
