On May 15th, Drake fans expected to receive one album, that being Iceman; however, fans were met with the surprising release of three new albums, one of them being Maid of Honour. 

Each of the albums were supposed to represent a different genre of music, this one being more of a house and dance album. 

The album has a total of 14 songs, adding up to the length of the album being 45 minutes long. 

On first listen, this album gives summer vibes, which I really enjoyed since I feel like most of Drake’s old songs give more of a summer break type of vibe. 

However, this does not mean that this album is anywhere as great as Drake’s older projects. The album had its moments, but overall I felt like Maid of Honour was just alright. 

The album starts with “Hoe Phase.” The song starts with a slow, melodic instrumental with Drake singing, “Did you forget about back home?” Towards the halfway point the beats switches into a more upbeat tempo, which caught me off guard, but I really liked it. 

I would say my favorite song on the album is “Road trips.” Again, like the last song, it starts with a slow melodic beat, but then speeds up, but this time the producer adds an almost techno sound which weirdly works with the song. 

Something I really like about this album is the way Drake sings, since I personally feel that he does way better when he sings compared to when he raps. I feel like most of the time when Drake raps it just sounds monotone and almost like he’s talking on the beat.

Moving onto “Cheetah Print” featuring Sexyy Red, the song starts fine, opening with a sample from the song “(It goes like) Nanana” by Peggy. He changed the song to make it sound more upbeat for the summer which worked really well and is honestly one of my favorite samples of the album. 

The issue with this song lies with Sexyy Red. In the last minute of the song, she proceeds to make a remix of the “Cha Cha Slide.” This part felt really out of place for me and in my opinion very unnecessary for the song. I feel like Drake is really trying to force Sexxy Red onto all of his fans, considering that she also had a feature on Drake’s other album Habibti.

The second half of the album felt like a whole lot of filler with nothing that really stood out. “Amazing Shape” featuring Popcaan had an unusual beat that I couldn’t really get into the groove of and is honestly my least favorite song of the album. 

In addition, I always find it annoying when Drake uses a fake accent when singing, which he did a lot throughout the album and did throughout the entirety of this song. Popcaan’s feature on the song was nothing special and overall the whole song was just mediocre. 

“New Bestie,” like the previous song, starts with him singing in a Jamaican accent. The song starts pretty slow but starts to speed up. A good touch on the song was the extra addition of the piano which I felt like it really fit the song. 

The last third of the album starts with “Q&A” which is a below average song. It kinda sounds like Drake is trying to sing, but it just sounds like he is normally talking over a beat which didn’t impress me at all. The drums on the song aren’t anything special making the song sound overall basic. 

“Stuck” was the best song off the last third of the album and the second best before “Road Trips.” The song has a smooth bass guitar and drums that anyone can easily bump their head to. In addition I just feel like the chorus is super easy to get stuck in your head. “And now we’re stuck, stuck, stuck like traffic, stuck. We’re stuck, stuck like that, stuck like glue, we’re stuck. We’re stuck, stuck like that, stuck with you, I’m stuck.” 

The last song off the album “Princess” starts with a distorted sounding guitar, which caught me off guard since I wouldn’t expect this type of sound from a Drake song. Honestly, I felt like this song didn’t fit in with the summer house vibe he was going for but the song was unique and I didn’t mind it. 

I think Drake, coming out with three albums all releasing on the same day, had a quantity over quality mindset which I didn’t like. Especially considering that his older music is so good and still has replay value years later, whereas with this album I feel like you listen to it once then forget it even exists. 

All in all, the album does its job of making you want to dance, but the lyrics are not great and the production can be iffy at times, so I would have to give this album a 5/10. 

OVO