Wintry and subdued-those are the'Views' from Drake's latest release

Expectation management is a complicated pop-music game, and Drake has dealt himself a challenging hand with Views (OVO Sound **1/2), the Canadian rapper's long-awaited fourth official album, released Thursday night.

Drake started talking about the album then called Views From the 6 way back in 2014. (The number is a nickname for his hometown of Toronto, whose two area codes are 416 and 647, and whose geographical area was once divided into six separate cities.)

But while his fans were waiting for a personal statement, Drake got very busy in 2015 with projects that had nothing to do with Views, whose title was shortened just this week.

There was a ubiquitous, earworm single in "Hotline Bling," and a feud with Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill that bolstered his reputation. Plus, Drake released two winning, hot-selling "retail mixtapes," with both If You're Reading This, It's Too Late and What a Time to Be Alive, a teaming with Atlanta rapper Future, who will join him at the Wells Fargo Center on Aug. 21.

All that set the table for Views, which is on sale on iTunes and streaming exclusively on Apple Music.

The 29-year-old rapper and singer, whose fluid vocal versatility is a big part of his appeal, explained in an interview on Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio that he structured the album "around the change of the seasons in our city. . . . I thought it was important to make the album here during the winter."

Perhaps that's why Views is so subdued. The album features a number of producers, but the dominant collaborator is Drake's longtime helpmate Noah "40" Shebib. And the spare, buzzing backdrops on most of the 20 tracks - including "Hotline Bling," which feels out of place - set a contemplative mood more suitable for cozying up by the fire than tearing down the highway in a Bugatti.

Born Aubrey Drake Graham and a former teen actor on the Canadian TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation, Drake has always been the hip-hop star comfortable rapping about his inner life. The views he expresses here are often centered on his innermost (hurt) feelings.

The album's first track, "Keep the Family Close," starts with the sound of whipping wind and overheard dialogue: "It's a little chilly out there." It's cold inside, too, where Drake is rhyming over an enticing beat that's evocative of the James Bond theme. "All of my 'let's-just-be-friends' are friends I don't have anymore," he realizes, sounding bruised. "How do you not check on me when things go wrong / Guess I should have kept my family closer."

That bunker mentality is familiar in hip-hop. The Kanye West-coproduced track here is called "U With Me?" "My enemies want to be friends with my other enemies," Drake raps in "Hype." "I don't let it get to me."

Views is not an album of bangers; it's a blue-mood piece that supposes downcast music is the most serious. At 82 minutes, it goes on too long. But, like Rihanna's Anti, Views' commercial prospects shouldn't be underestimated.

Drake knows how to appeal to the masses. "Childs Play" involves a visit to a Cheesecake Factory. And even when he's being a stick-in-the-mud, Drake is enough of a charismatic, rhythmically sophisticated rapper to make for pleasurable listening. But with the bad timing to arrive the week that music fans have been knocked out by Beyoncé and are being awed by the memory of Prince, the mildly engaging Views registers as a disappointment.

ddeluca@phillynews.com

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@delucadan

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