What Would Be Your Ideal Drake Album?

Over the past decade, Drake has situated himself as one of the most revered and commercially successful rappers of all time. The Toronto native's relentless output since his So Far Gone mixtape set him on the course for superstardom starting in 2009. Since then, he's released five studio albums, a handful of mixtapes, memorable loose tracks, and even a "playlist." And with his ability to tap into a variety of genres spanning from conventional bar-driven rap, full on R&B, dancehall, afropop, and more, Drake is one of the few artists who can keep his fans satisfied even if they want to focus on just one of those skills.

Two weeks ago, Drake released his fifth studio album, Scorpion, which has already sparked an international internet phenomenon with New York comedian Shiggy's dance to standout track "In My Feelings." But merits aside, one of the more consensus criticisms of the album is that its 25 track, 90-minute runtime is way too long for how we consume music in 2018. Some fans have taken it upon themselves to create an ideal, edited version of the track list, picking their favorites and cutting off the excess.

Like many high-profile releases, Scorpion inspired fans to revisit Drake's catalog to look at how he's grown since first breaking away from his image as a teen actor on Degrassi. During this time, a friend of mine texted our group chat with a message that read:

The Calm
The Resistance
The Ride
Lord Knows
In My Feelings
Tuscan Leather
Fancy
9am in Dallas
Look What You’ve Done
Up All Night/Houstalantavegas

A dream Drake album

The text came as a surprise but considering that I was doing nothing more than fishing through YouTube for underground artists and catching up on podcasts, I got sucked into the question he implied: What 10 Drake songs would make the perfect album?

This exercise wasn't to rank Drake's best ten tracks. While still challenging, that doesn't require much creativity. Going through Drizzy's extended catalog—including loose tracks and freestyles—to craft what would flow best as a ten-song album is a bit more daunting, especially considering that his albums have gotten progressively longer over the past few years. After deliberating, I came up with what I thought would be the ideal Drake album and took it to Twitter.

The tweet traveled further than I anticipated and luckily so, because it was interesting to see what Drake songs resonate with people enough that it'd make a dream album. Like mine, the overwhelming majority started their albums off with "Tuscan Leather," the intro from my personal favorite Drake album, Nothing Was The Same. But outside of that, what was most apparent was that Drake has such a wide selection of music that a prompt like this probably wouldn't be as varied if asked of our other rap titans. Here are a few responses:

There are probably over a million ways to create a ten-track Drake album. But if you were given the chance, how would your album flow from beginning to end? Let's collectively get to the bottom of this!

Lawrence Burney spent hours on this but still has not accepted how much of a Drake fan he is. Follow him on Twitter.