2015 sales vs. 2022 sales are a totally different ballgame.

If you’re a big artist with a hyped release in 2015, it was still gonna do numbers because people were buying it outright before hearing it. Of course, good word of mouth would lead to more sales, but it was not about how many songs were commercially accessible, just if the album was good or not.

In 2022, that same album is dependent on repeat and return listeners to garner its’ sales because of streaming, so if a major artist drops an album that isn’t commercially viable (Mr. Morale) or one that’s just straight up disliked (Honestly, Nevermind), it’s not gonna do major sales numbers.

TPAB was not commercially accessible, yes, but it was released at a time when it didn’t have to be for people to still click “buy” on iTunes or cop a CD from their local retailer

Lmao "isn't commercially viable" vs "straight up disliked" is like "looting" vs "finding". It's the same thing. Both albums were disliked by general audiences.

Today, I can confidently say that Honestly, Nevermind is a lot more liked and beloved by audiences than Mr. Morale lol.

I’m saying this as someone that thinks HNVM is Drake’s third best project:

It absolutely is not more loved than Mr. Morale. Most niggas still straight up hate that album

No it’s not. It’s two totally different statements. There’s sometimes overlap, but it’s not always the case.

Thinking they’re the same is implying that every non-mainstream artist makes bad music because they’re not selling a lot of records

Hard disagree on MM&TBS being more accessible. King Kunta, Alright, These Walls, TBTB all have more hit potential than songs on Mr Morale. N95, Silent Hill, Die Hard, Rich Spirit, maybe Father Time (that hook grating tho) pretty much the only songs on there putting up a fight and those not competing with Alright and King Kunta

TPAB negative reaction was basically on KTT only, was getting praise everywhere else. Even the music kids at my school who didn't listen to rap loved that album in 2015. MM was getting praise from critics but a lot of people weren't f***ing with it

I played Worldwide Steppers for someone and she asked me to turn if off, it was making her ears hurt Like half the album is not hit material, Idk where y'all expect the sales to come from

They think he was chasing hits on Mr. Morale because N95 had a music video

Hey numbers girl

Check this out

Honestly never mind daily streams: 1,098,936

Mr morale daily streams: 2,058,242

Since numbers equals quality for you. Surely you are wrong yet again!

A lot of people still hold the sentiments that you initially expressed for HNVM. Bad vocals, bad lyrics etc. I live in a country with a big house scene, Black Coffee is my people. I'm sorry, but it's just not a good attempt at the genre

The response to this will be “it’s a dance album of course it’s not getting streams”

Which then begs the question: what made you get the idea that general audiences enjoy HNVM more than Mr. Morale?

i don't think he was hit chasing on either album, and i didn't really say/imply that either. i'm just saying outside of King Kunta & Alright, TPAB got a lot of pushback at release, which is now kind of retconned - it got critical pushback as well initially too, it being revered was somewhat delayed; this definitely was not KTT, it was a lot of music circles. I'm not criticizing either album because i'm leaving my own opinions out of this. I get that there's caveats on this but TPAB and MMBS are really good comparable albums for a lot of reasons - like okay we can cite We Cry Together, but TPAB has U. Let's not turn the conversation about "accessibility" into "which album is actually better". If you want to say MMBS just sold less because it's a worse album then okay sure, I guess

Yeah when you're actually familiar with that scene, it's not a great album

HNVM had potential to be great but Drake didn't put his full papiconda into it

Most of that s*** you can't dance to with those vocals sorry

You gotta have a smooth voice for those type of beats and Drake's voice is just whiny/nasally and covered in autotune on a lot of those songs. Ellie Goulding is the perfect type of singer for house songs. Can't really think of a male comparison rn

Why are you posting stream totals like they have the same number of tracks. Why are you removing the context you've been fighting so hard to be in the conversation for GNX

None of these threads call him the biggest rapper in the world lol

Thats in the context of fw sales not 3 years later when everyone actually already has picked out their favorite songs

1. Mr. Morale is the older album, it shouldn’t still be getting streamed more than HNVM.

2. Morale doesn’t have double the tracks of HNVM, it has 4 more. People just genuinely disliked HNVM and don’t return to it outside of Jimmy Cooks (which is currently getting 500K of HNVM’s 1 million daily plays right now). The highest streamed daily song right now on Morale is Rich Spirit, getting 300K daily, so it’s much more spread out among the entire album

I’ve been told that more songs = more chances for that song to be someone’s favorite song. So it still should matter according to them.

I’m not saying people like HNVM more than MMBS. So I’m not trying to argue that they do. I’m just asking for intellectual honesty and consistency which his post lacked.

I think your post makes much better points than his did

Will Drake outsell this album? Drake barely did 400k on his last album and none of his new songs have been performing well. Every album release there is a significant sales drop since CLB

He'll do physicals for the first time in a while, just to make sure he easily clears 400k. No way his ego allows him to sell less than Kendrick.

Ah yes, the truly avant-garde move of making music that people can dance to