Drake's second album, "Take Care," could not exist without the hyper-confessional hip-hop of Kanye West's "808s and Heartbreak" and "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" — West is the brilliant king of artful oversharing — but much of the spirit of Drake's beautiful but viciously hurt "Take Care" comes from Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear." That 1978 double album, recorded while Gaye was emotionally lashing out during his divorce from Anna Gordy, is a brilliant train wreck, an exercise in total discomfort that feels like listening to Mom and Dad fighting. On the single "Marvin's Room," which was recorded in the same studio, Drake is just as blistering, attacking his ex's choice of a lover while simultaneously trying to remind her of the good times: "I'm just saying that you could do better," he sings after a hateful string of invective.

The cover image depicts Drake surrounded by gold baubles but conspicuously alone at a dinner table: Money will not buy happiness, and it only amplifies the sadness. On "Doing It Wrong," featuring Stevie Wonder delivering a plaintive harmonica solo, Drake raps to the woman in his faltering relationship: "We sure make it feel like we're together, 'cause we're scared to see each other with somebody else." The beautiful title track, a duet with Rihanna, is all about pleading for another try on one side and being pitied on the other. The mood on "Take Care" is almost uniformly dark, an album filled with passive aggression and drunk dialing.

And yet "Take Care" is remarkably beautiful, filled with the sparse sonics hinted at with last year's "Thank Me Later" and the atmospheric gloom that pervaded the much-admired mixtape "House of Balloons," released earlier this year by Drake's Toronto-based compatriots, The Weeknd. Drake's rap flow has improved, and he barely indulges in the tiresome, hashtag-style raps that appeared on "Thank Me Later." Other than unadulterated jams such as "Under Ground Kings" and his duet with Nicki Minaj, "Make Me Proud," "Take Care" will not be the life of any party, but it feels uncommonly honest. Gaye, that great balladeer of conscience, passion and tragedy, would thank him now.

— George Lang