Drake - So Far Gone (2009)

There's no doubt that Drake is one of the hottest artists in the business right now. "Hotline Bling", a fantastic track that feels a bit like a throwaway, is charting at #2 on the Hot 100, right behind Drake  The Weeknd's "The Hills". Not only is Drake himself present, but he's influential too.

2009's So Far Gone is Drake's latest free mixtape, because honestly, because even though I love this year's If You're Reading This It's Too Late and the Future collab What a Time to Be Alive, one should not have to pay for mixtapes. Hell, those two don't count.

Anyways, So Far Gone. I've loved the single "Best I Ever Had" for awhile now, so I felt it right to listen to the whole tape. It clocks in at a whopping seventy minutes, which is frankly too long. The sophomore album Take Care could get away with its massive length due to its thematic cohesiveness, but this is simply too long.

On "Brand New", Drake asks multiple times if he is doing anything brand new. Though the song is about relations with women, it could be looked at as a retrospective of his release. Is So Far Gone doing anything brand new? It does give Drake his biggest showcase yet as both a rapper and a singer, and the producers 40 and Boi-1da have stayed relevant since its release. But no, So Far Gone isn't doing anything brand new.

Of course, a mixtape's quality isn't proven by revolutionizing the game, but So Far Gone is unfortunately bland and typical of many other releases of the late 2000's. There's an excessive use of autotune, and Drake's somber themes of love have been done better before.

Still, "Best I Ever Had" remains as a poppy and fantastic track. If there was any one track that the tape could be condensed to, the result would be "Houstatlantavegas", which has a great cover by Sonnymoon. So Far Gone isn't entirely original or justified in its enormous length, but it's good timepiece to see how far Drake and his team have come.

6/10

Listen to the tape here. Here's Sonnymoon's cover for "Houstatlantavegas".