Last year, I introduced the world to Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut. It was an effort to pare down Drake's misunderstood sad-rap opus into a version that emphasized just how many gems it contained once you part through the bloat. After long and intense anticipation prior to its release, Views was met with a lukewarm response, and despite some positive reappraisals, the prevailing narrative has largely remained the same since then. Despite the critical consensus, Views was a commercial success though, gaming the new Billboard chart rating system to maximize Spotify streaming counts due to its endless tracklist.
Drake repeated that trick again with his don't-call-it-an-album album More Life, a 22-song "playlist" that chronicles his obsession with the UK rappers, Caribbean music, and not taking naps. This time around it was considered a success. The reviews surrounding More Life have been much more positive, with many dubbing it a return to form after Views. But even the praise was tempered with the idea that this collection of songs, while breezier than its predecessor, was still bloated. An 80 minute album seems to be something we've just come to expect from Aubrey Graham.
But what if we didn't have to accept that? Where Views was underrated and I trimmed it down to expose its many high points, I think More Life is slightly overrated, so I've made a condensed version to show the world how much better it could be. I call it More Life, Less Songs, and here's how it looks:
1. Free Smoke
2. No Long Talk
3. Passionfruit
4. Jorja Interlude
5. Get It Together
6. Madiba Riddim
7. Blem
8. Gyalchester
9. Skepta Interlude
10. Portland
11. Sacrifices
12. KMT
13. Lose You
14. Can't Have Everything
15. Ice Melts
16. Do Not Disturb
This streamlined version comes in at 16 tracks, so let's talk about the cuts made to get it down from the original 22: People seem to love Sampha, but I remain skeptical so I'm casting off "4422" to his own album where it belongs. "Nothings Into Somethings" is so slight it will hardly be missed, so that gets nixed too. The only thing "Teenage Fever" has going for it is the Jennifer Lopez sample, so just listen to the original song if you want to hear that. I didn't think Drake and Kanye West could collaborate on anything worse than the non-album version of "Pop Style," but they admirably proved me wrong with the turgid, grating "Glow." "Since Way Back" is six minutes long...I don't think I need to explain why it has to go. And last to be dropped is "Fake Love," which is good but we've all heard it a million times, and there's no need to hear it again, especially near the end of a long album. With all those exclusions, the album length has been reduced from an interminable 81 minutes to a tighter 59.
One extra thing I did last year with Views: The Antonio Whitehead Cut was switch up the sequencing to change the order of a few songs. I wasn't able to do the same on More Life, Less Songs because its tracks tend to connect and bleed into one another. That's a shame too, because I do think there's some opportunity to switch things up, seeing as the first half is heavily weighted towards the R&B leaning songs while the back half is more rap-centric, and it would be nice to integrate things more. Overall, though, the sequencing is less of an issue here than it was with Views. I like to think that Drake read my post last year and realized I was right about starting that album with "Weston Road Flows," because he starts off More Life with the straight rap assault of "Free Smoke."
So that's More Life, Less Songs. It still has both Giggs verses, so it's not a perfect album, but it goes down much easier than the original incarnation. Feel free to see for yourselves, as I've added a Spotify version of my playlist below. And Drake: if you're reading this, it's not too late to re-release the album with just these songs.
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