Getting ejected from the throne of hip-hop’s boys’ club wounded Drake’s ego more than any heartbreak ever could. He made his name on moody and volatile odes to strippers and bottle girls, but nothing has ever mattered more to him than getting love from the men he wanted to be. It was why his role as Lil Wayne’s protégé meant everything to him. It was why he torpedoed his debut album with wannabe Kanye songs and used it as an excuse to rub shoulders with Jay-Z, T.I., and Jeezy. It was why getting laughed out of the room by Pusha T on “The Story of Adidon” made his music so easily become mean and cynical—the romance was never really the point.

That’s the case with $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, too. It’s the most R&B-centric Drake project since So Far Gone and the situations and situationships aren’t that much different than they were in 2009. He’s once again unwittingly the butt of the joke, getting punked by rap’s tough guys and their fetishists. (Remember when Common dusted off the “The Bitch in Yoo” vibes just to call Drake soft?) He’s once again embarrassingly melodramatic. (Did you see the recent video of him walking out to the “Over My Dead Body” instrumental at a show in Australia with smoking bullet holes altered into his sweatshirt?) He’s once again desperate for the heavyweights of Atlanta or Houston or New York to reach out and tell him we fuck with you. In his twenties, all of that made him sort of endearingly corny, real, and funny. Now? He can’t just bring out the wintertime beats, the strip-club sulking, the voicemail interludes, the Keith Sweat begging, and expect that suddenly, everyone who once loved him will come running back. But I’d be frontin’ if I didn’t admit it’s pretty fascinating to hear him self-immolate, to hear him try so hard to stave off the culture’s slow fade.

$ome $exy $ongs 4 U is a desperate album from one of rap’s most notorious narcissists. He’s doing his best to act chill about it, but trust me, he’s shaking like Big Pussy before he got whacked. Using stories of various romances as a buffer, Drake cries out to us to keep his dream of being ultra-famous and powerful alive: “Thought I laid that shit out perfect, put it on the floor/Put it on my son, I put it on the Lord/What else can I swear on girl? There’s nothing more,” he sings over almost nothing but finger-snaps on “CN Tower.” And I’m a sucker for the pageantry, like the moment on “Moth Balls” when a woman’s melancholic voice drops in with, “I just hoped that someday, someone would love me” right as the beat mutates into a cloud of gloom. Drake is doing so, so much to get the world to pity him.

To effectively cast himself as the victim, Drake weaponizes nostalgia from his peak sadboy era. There’s the soulless pining of “Spider-Man Superman,” which attempts to mask that fact by weaving in a sample of Take Care’s “The Real Her,” a move that is so manipulative it’s off-putting. Then, the slow, eerie instrumentals, which are going for the synthy tragedies of early 40, though he’s nowhere to be found in the production credits. The fluttering harp-like sound of “Pimmie’s Dilemma” and the stretched-out fogginess of “Greedy” feel like straight-up mimicry. Drake doesn’t even seem to be all that infatuated with the beats himself, constantly opting for restless switch-ups that evoke the feeling of a used car salesman trying to get you to buy into anything.

His singing voice isn’t nearly as tender and smooth as once it was, either—his melodies are dead and sandpaper rough, like he’s been doing nothing but pounding whiskey shots and blowing O’s on the hookah pipe since the summer. Sometimes the effect is monotonous and emotionless, which might suit his headspace, but ultimately it’s just boring. When he adds a little spice to his voice he can still sound expressive, like on the album standout “Small Town Fame,” which, if you ignore the shamelessness of the Brat summer bar, features him at his most earnest as it builds to a light exhale of “I’m a mess right now.” They’re his only words that feel honest.

I should probably mention that PARTYNEXTDOOR is here, too. His job is to shift the mood back to threesomes and blowjobs when Drake is getting too serious. It’s technically a joint album, but Party’s contributions are mostly forgettable other than the dirty mackin’ solo cut “Deeper” and the moment on “Somebody Loves Me” when he chirps in with the most bone-chillingly dumb ad-lib I’ve heard in a minute: Her crotch. But the album isn’t his story whatsoever; if Drake did care about giving Party the spotlight, they would have dropped a collab album a decade ago. That’s part of the problem: Drake’s ulterior motives are so transparent that nothing feels sincere. Especially as he tries to get the women he alienated with the hypermasculinity of Certified Lover Boy, Her Loss, and For All the Dogs—the worst music of his life, all released in the last five years—back on his side.

That seems to be the album’s big plan, and the reason the OVO braintrust decided to go the R&B route: This is for all the girls. Drake goes about that by trying to get back in touch with his sensitive side, whether that be lyrics like, “You askin’ me what I like about you girl/How long you wanna sit in this kitchen?” or the hookah dates and late-night drives of “Raining in Houston.” But the sweet nothings are not nearly as sweet as he intends—he sounds like the ex-dude trying to woo his old girl by showing off his copy of All About Love only because he needs somewhere to stay.

The most shameless attempt might be “Nokia,” a twist on the “Nice for What”-style hype-up anthem that isn’t nearly as fun, starting from the obvious cheap play of shouting out the names of different women. The generic funk beat makes him sound like Drake doing Jack Harlow doing Drake. The hit-chasing gets more embarrassing on “Meet Your Padre,” the return of Spanish Drake nobody asked for, and “Die Trying,” a half-assed attempt to get the Nashville bag. Or maybe “Lasers,” when he puts on his white-knight armor and sings, “Said he hit you after that one fight/Closed fist, he’s fried, I’m heated/I don’t really want to speak about it/I’m brushin’ them niggas soon as we see them,” which sounds like bullshit from the guy who spent the last few years defending Tory Lanez.

On “Gimme a Hug,” the centerpiece of $ome $exy $ongs 4 U, the tension of Drake’s desires on the surface and in his soul meet. Rapping more than he does on the whole album, he’s not begging for forgiveness but feels entitled to it. “Niggas is hatin’ the boy for sure, the women in love/Walk in the strip club, damn, I missed you hoes, give me a hug,” he raps, with the same bravado of his last three albums. If there were ever a time for Drake to get his puppy dog simping on, it’s here. Instead he saves that emotion for what’s really getting him down: “Savage, you the only nigga checkin’ on me when we really in some shit, brother.” That’s what this is all really about. $ome $exy $ongs 4 U is not an album about romance or sex. Drake wants to keep shittin’ out hits into and beyond middle age with the guys and that dream is on the verge of being ripped from him. He theorizes it’s due to petty jealousies and the conspiring of deep-pocketed industry bigwigs. Actually, it’s that his music has been bitter and out of touch for a long time and it’s impossible not to notice.