Nothing Was the Same is released

Why it matters

Nothing Was the Same came out September 24, 2013, on Young Money/Cash Money/Republic. It is Drake's third studio album. The album sold 658,000 copies in its first week. The production is heavily Noah "40" Shebib-led, with the same atmospheric, slow-tempo, post-808s aesthetic that had defined Take Care, but with more outright pop-radio ambition. The album is the moment Drake formally consolidated his commercial position as the dominant rapper of the 2010s and arguably the dominant pop star of his generation in any genre. "Started from the Bottom" was the lead single. "Hold On, We're Going Home" with Majid Jordan was the chart-radio crossover. "Tuscan Leather" opens the album with a structural three-part beat-switch. "Wu-Tang Forever." "Pound Cake / Paris Morton Music 2" with Jay-Z. Nothing Was the Same is, by most account-balancing, the cleanest Drake album of his career: the album where the formula was crystallized but had not yet started fragmenting into the longer, more uneven, more frequent releases that would characterize his post-2016 output. You should hear it in order. The arc through the album rewards the sequencing.