He made three brilliant records before his death. All three unique in
their own way. Ok, it's crass to try and simplify these matters, cos' this
is, after all, great art, but the second album, Bryter Layter, has horns
and violins and everything, it's even a bit 
jazzy,
but not in an unpleasant way, it's very studied and lush but poignant nonetheless.
The third album, Pink Moon, is quite the opposite in it's treatment. Often,
it's just the guitar and Drake's voice, on the title track there is a bit
of piano, but that's about it.
The first album, Five Leaves Left, is a bit of a blend of the two.
The lonely voice, the slow guitar but a bit of orchestration aswell. Probably
more of a folk album than the other two, whatever that means.
The circumstances surrounding Drake's death are a bit of a mystery. Was it an accidental overdose of medicine he was taking to combat his depression or did he purposefully take his own life? We shall probably never know.
Despite the dramatic circumstances of Drake's life and his demise, the
music is not the kind of depressing thing that drags you down. On the contrary,
although Drake's music is sad and solitary it doesn't leave you with the
blues.
In fact there is something cathartic about it. Although it deals with
the hard issues of life, there is something transcendent there, something
uplifting that actually makes you feel better.
This is especially true of the second album, Bryter Layter, the album
that was set to make Drake famous, the album that should have been his
breakthrough but by some bizarre quirk of the music business failed to
do that.
Bryter Layter is Drake's masterpiece (although, apparently, the die-hard
fans go for the ascetic "Pink Moon").
Pink Moon is definitely a harder listen than Bryter Layter and if Drake's
work could be accused of being depressing, this album would be the main
evidence.
Still, although the album is bleak and the musical treatment cut down
to the very basics I still say it doesn't give you the blues.
It's a bit silly to compare completely different musical styles, but the eighties really did it for depressing sounds. The whole new wave aftermath of the punk movement made depressing into a way of life and created musical styles that ressembled dirges and funeral marches. Gothic, cold wave, dark wave, the very tonality of this music was grim and glum. The band that really pushed the boat out was The Cure with their 1982 album entitled Pornography. Now that was depressing.
Back to Pink Moon. It's a work of stark beauty ! The songs are reduced
to minimum guitar and voice but they are not simple. Indeed, there are
some very powerful songs there. All the more powerful as they don't benefit,
or indeed need to benefit from any snazzy accompaniments. It's an ascetic
album, it could almost be termed a "zen" album, but that doesn't sound
too good. Suffice it to say that Pink Moon, too, is a masterpiece.