Maps of Music

For All the Dogs (2023)

Where the lyrics of For All the Dogs take you, and where it was really made.

Drake's eighth studio album was delayed several times after its September 2023 target and then returned to number one on the Billboard 200 with a deluxe edition.

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Album story

Overview

• For All the Dogs: eighth studio album by Canadian rapper Drake
• Released 6 October 2023 by OVO Sound and Republic Records
• Guest appearances from Teezo Touchdown, 21 Savage, J. Cole, Yeat, SZA, PartyNextDoor, Chief Keef, Bad Bunny, Sexyy Red, and Lil Yachty
• Production by Drake, Teezo Touchdown, Lil Yachty, 40, Sango, Oz, Bnyx, Southside, Boi-1da, Vinylz, Tay Keith, FnZ, Jahaan Sweet, the late DJ Screw, Stwo, Gordo, Justin Raisen, and the Alchemist, among others
• Standard edition: 23 tracks, over 84 minutes
• Scary Hours Edition released 17 November 2023 with six additional tracks, total over 108 minutes

Background

• Drake first teased the album in January 2023 at his free Apollo Theater concert
• Developed mostly during the It's All a Blur Tour, his co-headlining tour with 21 Savage
• Originally set for September 2023, then delayed by exactly two weeks due to the ongoing tour
• Follows Honestly, Nevermind (seventh album) and the collaborative album Her Loss with 21 Savage, both released in 2022
• Released alongside the poetry book Titles Ruin Everything, co-written with Kenza Samir
• Nicki Minaj's planned appearance was later revealed as the track "Needle", which appeared on her album Pink Friday 2 instead
• Bad Bunny appears on "Gently"
• Drake's son Adonis drew the album artwork

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Career

• Aubrey Drake Graham, born October 24, 1986 in Toronto, Ontario, is a Canadian rapper, singer and actor.
• Gained recognition as Jimmy Brooks in the CTV teen drama Degrassi: The Next Generation (2001–2008).
• Independently released mixtapes Room for Improvement (2006), Comeback Season (2007) and So Far Gone (2009) before signing with Young Money Entertainment in 2009.
• Debut album Thank Me Later (2010) debuted atop the Billboard 200; followed by Take Care (2011), Nothing Was the Same (2013), Views (2016), Scorpion (2018), Certified Lover Boy (2021) and Iceman (2026).
• Views led the Billboard 200 for 13 weeks; "One Dance" became the first song to surpass 1 billion streams on Spotify.
• Among the world's best-selling artists with over 170 million units sold; the highest-certified digital singles artist in the United States.
• Accolades include 5 Grammy Awards, 6 American Music Awards, 41 Billboard Music Awards, 2 Brit Awards and 3 Juno Awards.
• Founded OVO Sound, DreamCrew and the fragrance house Better World; became global ambassador of the Toronto Raptors in 2013.
• Known for feuds with Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar; the 2024 feud with Lamar is reported to have damaged his public image.

Reception

At release

• Critical reception was mixed, with praise for its production but criticism for its length and some of its lyrics
• Metacritic: weighted average score of 53 from 13 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews"
• AllMusic (Tim Sendra): described Drake returning to his usual approach of slow beats and alternately aggressive and morose rapping, with occasional misogyny
• Clash (Shahzaib Hussain): praised the production moving between "sterilised studio sheen" and "an earthy fusion of soul samples and boom-bap drums" and said it signals a turning point
• Evening Standard (Will Richards): wrote that the album drags its feet and loses its cohesion
• The Guardian (Shaad D'Souza): said it contains some of Drake's most invigorated songs in years
• The Independent (Nadine Smith): found the childish pettiness and adolescent insecurities tired and immature
• Pitchfork (Julianne Escobedo Shepherd): wrote that the music cannot save him from himself beyond a few flashes of brilliance
• Rolling Stone (Mosi Reeves): saw evidence of a good album within the bloated hour-and-a-half running time, but called it meandering
• Slant Magazine (Paul Attard): called it a bloated collection of hardly thought-out ideas, with immaculate production
• Ended up on year-end lists by several publications as one of the best albums of the year

Reappraisal

• Clash (Shahzaib Hussain) on the Scary Hours Edition: said Drake "finds pockets within the grooves and crevices" and that Drake is his only competition
• HipHopDX (Nadine Smith) on the Scary Hours Edition: wrote that it makes him look "desperate" and "uncomfortable"

Records

• Billboard 200: debuted at number one with 402,000 album-equivalent units, including 10,000 pure album sales
• Year's highest-selling rap album in the United States
• Debut week: 514.01 million global on-demand streams, the largest streaming week of 2023
• Canadian Albums: debuted at number one, Drake's fourteenth number-one album in Canada
• Drake's thirteenth number-one album in the US
• UK: sixth number-one album for Drake; second chart-topping album in less than a year
• Scary Hours Edition returned the album to number one on the Billboard 200 with 145,000 units
• As of 27 December 2023: 1,121,000 album-equivalent units, per Hits
• All 23 tracks debuted on the Billboard Hot 100, seven in the top ten
• Drake became the first artist with at least 300 Hot 100 entries

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Nicki Minaj's planned appearance was later revealed as "Needle", which ended up on her Pink Friday 2 album; Drake felt it did not fit this album sonically.
• The album's radio show theme features George Clinton, Sade Adu, and Snoop Dogg closing tracks as if hosting "BARK Radio".
• Drake's son Adonis drew the cover; Drake dedicated the artwork to his own fifth-grade drawing of a cat with blue eyes.
• On 6 August 2024, Drake released 100 gigabytes of data, and two unused cover arts for this album were among the unseen artworks found.
• Drake's father, Dennis Graham, appears in the flashback trailer shared two days after the September announcement.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org · en.wikipedia.org

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