Who woulda thought the most exciting release of the summer would be so … unexciting? Don’t get me wrong, Drake’s big shiny debut is not really a bad album, in the sense that 93 percent of the album is really quite good, which means that 13 out of the 14 tracks are like contractually unskippable (the exception is “Cece’s Interlude,” though to be fair, its name seems to indicate that it need not be taken as seriously).

Thank Me Later is a good, near-great hip-hop debut, and Drake is probably the best “emerging” rapper who is currently putting out actual, official releases (I’m looking at you, Jay Electronica).

So Thank Me Later arrives with a not-unreasonable amount of hype, considering. The week before the album’s release, The New York Times’s Arts section even decided to bury the usual “Gender Issues Explored on Broadway” (or whatever) headline to make room for Drake’s very own story-so-far bio-piece on Page One. All of which makes more inexplicable the baffling, Jim Joycean fuck-up that is the album’s sequencing. Why, oh why are the first three tracks the first three tracks? I’m still trying to reason it out.

Hip hop is in a weird place right now: Weezy is locked up, Auto-Tune fever has subsided and Jay-Z will probably just write New York City PSAs for the rest of his waning career. It’s Drake’s debut that is supposed to offer us the first inkling of what the future of hip-hop might sound like. So if Drake’s album is truly the beginning of a new era, then it’s unfortunate that, contrary to both physics and Eliot, it all starts with a whimper.

“Fireworks,” “Karaoke” and “The Resistance” — the album’s much-bemoaned openers — are all fine songs in their own right. But they’re soft, delicate, and they find Drake treading in the same sedated marsh he first visited on So Far Gone’s “Successful” and “Houstatlantavegas.” Y’know the sound: a shimmery sea of synth washes and rock-a-bye drum loops into which Drake launches super-smooth, echoey R&B hooks and detached verses comprised of witty couplets. This form (which he also uses in a strictly R&B sense alongside the-Dream on “Shut it Down”) has the effect of making Drake sound deep and sincere and filled with not-your-average-rapper’s emotions. But it also sacrifices a great deal of rawness and tenacity, features that are major contributors to what makes hip hop both a fun and supremely powerful art form in the first place. Three of these songs in a row is a real test — during the first 13 minutes of Thank Me Later, you can’t rock your head to the beat without looking like you’re in a mechanized struggle to keep from nodding off.

Finally and mercifully, first single “Over” thunders in with its twisted guitar leads, and the change of pace is so shocking and welcome that the song nearly topples you over and suddenly you remember you’re listening to the same ex-“Degrassi” star who was responsible for last summer’s absolute monster, “Best I Ever Had.”

“Over” marks the point where the album really opens up, with song after song that could each become the next single and Drake working his coming-to-terms-with-fame rap that never seems to get old because (a) he really means it, and (b) it’s chock-full of insight into a lifestyle 99.9 percent of us will never experience.

To elaborate on the latter point, Drake seems to really want to be relatable. It’s this conceit that embodies a new movement in hip hop, whereby rappers are less interested in selling themselves than they are in communicating something personal and connecting on an emotional level with their listeners. That’s not to say Drake isn’t cocky; he still can boast with the best of them. But that’s just peripheral.

The album’s guests — Young Jeezy, T.I., Jay-Z and Drake’s professional grand-pep Lil Wayne, among others — all perform ably and help further highlight the new direction Drake is taking (especially on “Unforgettable,” in which, next to Jeezy’s aggressive bellowing, Drake sounds something like a hip-hop James Taylor).

Production credit is dominated by fellow Canadian 40, whose ethereal, lightweight beats allow Drake room to unleash his hook-making charm. And Kanye’s beat on “Show Me A Good Time” is better than anything on 808s And Heartbreak.

By the time the album wraps up, the opening sequencing debacle is all but forgotten and Drake really has justified the hoopla. Thank Me Later is not surprising, dynamic nor all that exciting. Yet somehow, with all the glossy hooks and sincere wordplay, Drake has made a very solid album. Although … consider listening to it on shuffle.