Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 11/07/2011 at 1:30 PM Reviews

The Popdust Files: drake, take care, track-by-track reviews

Track 3: “Headlines”

Sounds Like: Been listening to hip-hop radio much recently? If so, you probably don’t need much description from us here, but if not, it’s a mid-tempo-ish 40-produced number, with Drake’s typical fretting over girls that “miss the old me” and haters who “tell me I fell off, ooh I needed that.” It’s a little over-billed by its title, since there’s no real breaking news here, though the song’s time-keeping synth hook does sound like it would make good intro music for CBS News or something.

Pros: As we hoped when we initially reviewed it, the song sounds better in the context of Take Care than it did as a stand-alone single (“We imagine that it’ll slot in nicely as maybe the third or fourth track”—bingo). The previously mentioned synth hook has just gotten more and more transfixing over the course of dozens of listens, and the simplicity of the vocal hook (“They know, they know, they know”) while not an attention-grabber by any means, has burrowed its way into our 2011 musical subconscious. That 40 and Drake, they know what they’re doing on occasion.

Cons: The song’s themes are still kinda played from the TML days, and because he wants to give fans who have already heard “Headlines” a hundred times something new to chew on (or, if you take the cynic’s view, a reason to re-buy the song on iTunes), Drake adds on a spoken-word outro to the song here that is most unnecessary. “Rather you make this an open letter…About hearts that you’ve broken, and ties that you’ve severed.” Whatevs, Aubrey.

Emo Alert!: “Yeah I be yelling out money over everything, money on my mind / Then she wanna ask when it got so empty.”

Drake Hashtags: Living up to the hype, Crew repping, Self-pity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A9VwUR8fBE

Previous Reviews: “Over My Dead Body,” “Shot For Me,”

POPDUST SAYS:
[starreview tpl=16]