2016, so far has been known as the year of music. Beyoncé, Drake, and Kanye West have all released highly anticipated albums. Each album was record breaking and chart topping.

Beyoncé, Kanye West, and Drake have all released albums this year and all three have had huge success. Lemonade by Beyoncé was just ranked the highest selling album of 2016 just last week by Billboard. Drake is also not too far behind Beyoncé with the second highest sales, but the highest in his genre of rap.” I’m a super fan of all three artists, I’ve been waiting for years for Kanye to drop his album, then out of nowhere Beyoncé released hers following Drake’s, I was so happy for the first few months of January”, says Jerry Gwinn. Rolling Stone rated Views by Drake with a 3 ½ out of 5 stars. This was extremely rare for a rap album to get such a high rating from Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone also gave an outstanding review to Mrs. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter; her album Lemonade received a perfect score a 5/5. Lemonade is her most emotionally extreme album, the most astounding sound is always Beyoncé’s voice, as she pushes it to the extreme. “I honestly feel like Lemonade is probably one of the greatest albums ever to be released by an artist, I can listen to it all the time and it doesn’t get old, not to mention that it’s a visual album with a whole movie to go along with it,” says junior Kelsey Taylor.

Artists such as Kanye and Beyoncé have taken a more personal standpoint in their work with issues of race, gender, and class. Drake, on the other hand, focuses on the many ex-girlfriends he can’t stop thinking about, unsure if he should feel guilty or aggravated about their breakup. “I think Drake has honestly improved so much over the years especially with this album, it’s some of his best work and I can say I’m very proud of him,” says senior Mynor Martinez. West just drops broken pieces of his psyche all over the album and challenges you to fit them together. All over the album, West hides behind his arrogant mask whenever he gets scared he’s exposed himself too deeply in the emotional music. He wants the world to see him as a mean guy because he gets terrified that the world might see him as a restless husband, which wouldn’t be good for his image.

West just drops broken pieces of his psyche all over the album and challenges you to fit them together. All over the album, West hides behind his arrogant mask whenever he gets scared he’s exposed himself too deeply in the emotional music. He wants the world to see him as a mean guy because he gets terrified that the world might see him as a restless husband, which wouldn’t be good for his image.
“Beyoncé, in my opinion, had a better album than Drake and Kanye. Not only was it rated higher, but it also sold more and it was a work of art…she had a movie to go with her album, something the other two didn’t,” says Kelsey Taylor. 2016 is far from being over so who knows, these artists could do a lot more to wow us in the next couple of months.