Tory Lanez x Love Me Now

Last Friday, one of our favorite Canadian sad boys, Tory Lanez, released his third studio album titled Love Me Now? While Tory stays true to his signature sound, this album is definitely more feature heavy compared to his previous releases. Lanez provides us with a plethora of collaborations from some of the industry's current favorites: Chris Brown, 2 Chainz, Gunna, Lil Baby, Bryson Tiller, and more. Although his production does not disappoint, his usual affinity for samples is nonexistent on this album. Makes you wonder if all the criticism (past critiques have said too many samples, not enough features) finally got into his head while creating this album.

I believe it's important to be aware of when (seasonally) an artist's album would sound best. For example, YEEZUS was a summer drop that sounded so much better in December. Some albums are meant to be a summer drop and some just sound better in the colder months. To me, Tory missed that mark and should've released this album in the summer, maybe even late summer circa August. He has a lot of "Summer-y" tracks on here that would've taken over the season. Truthfully, I had a hard time vibing with this album on the first listen, it took me a few times for it to finally hit a chord and not feel like every track sounded the same; it's definitely an album that has to grow on you. I do feel like there were some tracks that could've been left off due to them being too similar to another featured track. For example:

1. "Flexible" & "You Thought Wrong" & "If It Aint Right" (one of these would've sufficed)

2. "Cut Me Off" & "The Run Off" (one of these would've sufficed)

But being a big Tory fan myself, after breaking it down, I found some favorites, these are my top three:

Track #8: "Ferris Wheel" ft. Trippie Red

Track #12: "Miami" ft. Gunna

Track #14: "S.W.I.N.G" ft. PNB Rock & Trey Songz

*(Track #1: "Why Don't You Love Me?" is an honorable mention)

Overall, I probably won't continue to listen to this album in full. I got the few tracks that I like and I'll walk away with those. This album wasn't a total let down, but I don't seeing it having much longevity like some of his other projects do.