Yeah, you’re pretty… Pretty Wreckless Eric! Wait…

[Video][Website]
[5.86]Alfred Soto: It begins with a prayer, and forgive me if I expected Madonna testifying over syndrums. But the sentiments are the same. For the lies that they tell, for the lives that they hate, they’re going to hell, riding on power chords.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Heard the poppier stuff on uncounted CW bumpers (surprise), so I didn’t catch their heavier seasonings. All the good-bad-evil stuff is a wash, but the riff owns; paired with the Sunset-Strip punk passages it’s like resistance training. Plus there’s that “War Pigs” speed-up, just without the tape assist.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: While on the singles from their debut, Taylor Momsen could approach their darkness with a great vocal melody, “Going to Hell” lacks some of that appealing dose of feminine sensuality. Her band doesn’t add too much to the song either and, as always, they’re left at the back while she faces the audience all alone. Sometimes that worked (on happy songs like “You Make Me Wanna Die” and “Miss Nothing”), but this time she makes me wonder if pop music wouldn’t suit her a lot better.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Sometimes you have to check your misogyny at the door. I was worried that Taylor Momsen was too TV and too blonde to RAWK — which is weird, because I love TV and I love blonde, and Cherie Currie besides (sort of like how I became a weird defender of the canon when Morrisey’s autobio was released by Penguin Classics). But from the blasphemous whispered entry to the scrawling vocals to the grinding guitars, it’s fantastic. (Actually, mostly, it’s the vocals.) Father, forgive me for my rockism.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Props to The Pretty Reckless for making me not recoil immediately at hard rock — they dilute their heavy sound with something that sounds a lot like what plays on country radio (primarily the woman-done-wrong revenge songs), and that hint of twang makes me like this a lot more than something with that guitar solo should.
[5]

Crystal Leww: There is not a hint of subtlety in this vocal performance from Momsen. Every other word sounds like it’s being forcefully expelled from her mouth, like she’s really trying to pull off this vocal styling. That’s fine; she’s trying to break from her past like many of her similarly-aged peers throughout history, and she’s going about it by leaving pop music altogether. It sounds forced because everything about this is forced, and that’s okay! Let Taylor (Momsen) be Taylor. It’s nothing remarkable or life-changing, but it’s certainly not offensive either.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: I know a good underwater bridge when I hear it. That it’s muddied with the same old Catholic guilt and surrounded by My First (Second?) Riffs doesn’t matter too much.
[5]

Yeah…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Jessica Doyle: DeKalb County, Georgia, went from 27.5% black in 1980 to 42% in 1990 and 54% in 2000; the rise of a black power base in DeKalb is relatively new, compared to the century-plus of black political and economic development in Atlanta. Now, “Type of Way” put Rich Homie Quan in DeKalb east of the city of Atlanta (he grew up both inside and outside the city); but this video is set entirely in Atlanta. The opening and closing shots put the car running southwest on Peachtree Street — in other words, moving away from DeKalb towards what has historically been the center of the city’s black power structure. If part of “My *****” is to celebrate YG and Young Jeezy’s adoption of Quan, then the video makes that adoption geographic as well. Its most striking shot is of Quan looking listless outside the sign for the Atlanta city jail (Quan did serve a year for burglary, but it was in DeKalb County’s jail, outside I-285), as if he has to be introduced to the obstacles still facing Atlanta’s black community even while being celebrated by its most successful music industry… what? the song? oh. right. Random white lady from the northern suburbs still finds Quan adorable, appreciates the tempo change at the end of the first verse, promises never to try to sing along, ever.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Fraternity over squelch beats, how deep it goes only they know.
[4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Have you heard C-Murder’s “Down For My Niggas” lately? It’s still a blast, a super-powered aggressive bark with a deathless hook that’s perfect in its bluntness: everyone else sucks, my team rules, repeat ad infinitum. “My Nigga” finds DJ Mustard sucking the energy out of the original to craft another of his lurching subwoofer rollers, a tribute in behaviour rather than intent. Quan is the MVP here, guttural and impassioned, reminding us why “Type of Way” was such a shot to the heart. Jeezy cashes in and out, while host YG stays still and lets the track move on from his grasp. The original’s intensity is totally absent is here — so is the sense of brotherhood — there is at least that hook, but what’s a chant without a reason to recite?
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: A smooth reconfiguration of one of Lil Wayne’s most wide-screen songs turned into laid-back cruiser. Maybe a little too relaxed, as everyone here sounds good but nothing really sticks out save for Rich Homie Quan’s shouts deeper in the mix.
[6]

Brad Shoup: How many times did Mustard have to delete someone saying “pause”? Add this to the homosocial hip-hop canon, with Quan’s defensive cooing the most tender feature. One milkshake with three straws, please.
[7]

David Turner: This is an actual “hit” in that it has broken within the Billboard Top 20, which for a rap song in 2013 is fucking impressive if you’re not: a condescending white guy in a fur coat, an angry white guy, or this fucking guy. “My Nigga” is a typical “ratchet” song from the dream team of DJ Mustard and YG, a minimal remix of Luniz’s “I Got Five On It“. But the song’s popularity seems to have steamed from Vines of people, not-black, figuring out that it’s funny to repeat the chorus of the song. Vine already made “Gas Pedal” and “Red Light” (two excellent songs) popular by white people misreading them and proceeding to make them into twerk anthems; now the same is happening with racially insensitive language. Bless rappers getting paid off white ignorance. Gotta find the bright side!
[8]

We liked her back when only Lex liked her…

[Video][Website]
[6.50]

Alfred Soto: As much as Michelle honors the Chi-Lites sample with a full-throated delivery — when she descends for minor key melismatics she’s a wonder — the song’s relentlessness proves resistable after a couple of minutes. Still… still… she’s so there that airplay should take care of these cavils.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Just Blaze emphasized Eugene Record’s strings for “December 4th”; they functioned like the wavy lines that once signified flashbacks on TV shows. Pop & Oak push out one-note brass blat (later mirrored by left-hand piano chords, then bass throb) into which K. Michelle digs her heels. She growls, she beckons, she swings between two notes like a gymnast on the uneven bars. On the chorus in particular, it really sounds like everything. Rewrite the stumbling bridge and we’d have a perfect single.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: The backing and the interpolation are sample gold, but it’s odd that one of the introductions of modernity to them is the robotic nature of K. Michelle’s vocals; she seems to be pulling out some very unnatural melisma. As a result it jars where it could glide, not really doing justice to Debra Laws, or likely even Michelle herself.
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “VERY SPECIAL!” Okay, you’re overselling the product now.
[5]

Sonya Nicholson: The strings sound like they belong on a Hitchcock soundtrack but the lyrics are 100% of the “let’s make sure this is commercially viable” school of songwriting. K Michelle comes close to a standard power-diva vocal except that she’s a little too forceful and the look in her eyes is a little too wild (in the music video). I hate to admit this, but when I heard this song on the radio I took it at face value as hackwork. I like to think that if I’d stuck with it until the bridge (“I shouldn’t be with you, that’s what everybody says”) I’d have cottoned on to the implicit critique. Knowing it’s there, I’m digging how Michelle’s voice goes a little wild and desperate at the end of some lines, after being so controlled in the chorus. It’s a very good thing that she’s on this — without her great and subtle vocal performance this would be mostly just a clever idea.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: “Ain’t an ordinary,” “so much history,” this does read like it was written by an advertising executive for a certain alcoholic drink. Fortunately, it’s not sung like it. This is a genuine onslaught.
[7]

The future’s so… bright?

[Video][Website]
[4.14]

Brad Shoup: The wubbing track offers a kind of valiant hope. The Broz’ sub-Travis Porter come-ons, in that context, become a sort of crime against humanity.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Less than three minutes, and woe be the listener who demands more than a competent “Make It Rain” simulacrum.
[5]

Anthony Easton: They talk quite quickly, but they aren’t really saying much, and the speed/skill of the verbal fireworks just sort of sputter, not even signifying any amount of virtuosity. 
[2]

Crystal Leww: There is nothing revolutionary about “Call That”, but there is nothing really all that wrong with it either. Tool and Gennis write perfectly inoffensive raps bragging about their manly prowess, and Nick Cannon (?!) produced a beat that is perfectly weird in the verses and includes some crowd-pleasing hand claps in the chorus. Basically, I wouldn’t go nuts to do this on a dance floor, but I also wouldn’t leave either.
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: A cute take on a Travis Porter song, which is like a steak without meat.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: This is very much less than the sum of its parts. Gennis’ verse is fine, but it can’t compare to the loveably dorky and cheesy second verse from Tool. The hook’s not strong though, and none of it fits well with the chirpy wubs and almost sinister hisses echoey whistles that float around the track, and those two things don’t quite fit together either.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: Graduation day for the kids who were Taught How To Dougie. Youth never troubled southern California before, but Tool and Gennis sound lost in the mall: rhymes perfunctory rather than preternaturally simple. (Tool interpolates Nelly, failing a lesson Drake didn’t learn on “Worst Behaviour”: don’t bite a a better rapper’s bigger hit.) In a pinch, the beat could carry them. 
[4]

That’s right, a Lennon/McCartney cover.

[Video][Website]
[6.57]

Patrick St. Michel: Weird as heck song — Chief Keef is savoring his life, yet he still sounds pissed off, even if DJ Scream tries his best to make him sound more plainly upbeat via his whirling production work. Oh, and there are screams. Strange, but fascinating.
[7]

Anthony Easton: His unique voice and the carnivalesque  production remind me of missing the midway this year, a perfect scream-if-you-want-to-go-faster song released in the doldrums of late autumn, which makes me sad. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: Keef’s singsong cadences are well served by carnival melodies, and those cadences compensate for underwritten verses.
[6]

Crystal Leww: Chief Keef is plenty funny here, but he’s best when he’s both funny and actually good at the music part of it, too. “Laughin’ to the Bank”, for example, is basically just comprised of #hauhauhau’s and a lurching bass beat, but that hook will get stuck in your head all day long. “Yesterday” sounds like the bad kind of drunk-and-high-in-the-studio goofing off.
[3]

Brad Shoup: I love it because he keeps falling off the pirate ship, croaking his smanged-out grown-man impression. (It would seem that the Keef Beats give you an inner ear infection.) This sounds like it was assembled from 20 voicemails in the course of a bathroom break. Maybe it’s the short runtime or my suspicion that Keef’s stifling a belch at the 21-second mark, but I could listen to this all damn day.
[9]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: YG On the Beat’s instrumental is a lilting pirate shanty filtered through major key swag-rap. It’s weird. Never forget that Keef is plenty weird too: drawling atonally in his gruffest, drooling over sexual conquests like a horndog thrice his age, recalling mundane purchases from the day previous with a shrug, thinking of the next song before this one even finishes.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: He keeps slipping off the beat, which only adds to the urgency of his delivery. The whirligig production is more New Vaudeville than George Martin, but the Swinging London referent in the title is still totally there, echoed in the runtime. I love the fuck-you to his audience of violence-fetishizing voyeurs that this represents, though: maybe it’s not quite Lil B territory, but it’s better than doing endless variations on “I Don’t Like” for the rest of his life.
[7]

Our highest-scoring metal track ever?

[Video][Website]
[7.83]

Anthony Easton: What we describe as operatic in pop is not operatic in classical singing — pop is never quite able to be both ironic and earnest enough, and how it performs selfhood is radically different. Having a three-octave lyric soprano sing through such excessive production does find a way to cross-graft the (best?) talents of both. 
[9]

Alfred Soto: The string and power chord hybrid doesn’t sound canned, thanks to the poise of this Dutch metal band’s vocals; it evokes Bonnie Tyler singing a Paramore tune written by Jim Steinman. Only the operatic bits chomp heartily on corn.
[6]

Iain Mew: I keep picturing Sharon del Adel and Tarja as the wife and mistress from “Two Black Cadillacs.” Beyond the melodic similarity of the songs, the determined conviction fits, as does the balance between thrill and well, not guilt exactly, but… “no innocence, we play our role.” Plus “Paradise” ratchets up the musical drama in increments in a similar way. Except in this case, it starts of a combo of hacking at strings and MASSIVE METAL CHUG so going up from there is some bloody feat.
[9]

Brad Shoup: You could probably convince me to part with a Jackson for a bootleg of choral outtakes from symphonic metal sessions. The issue I tend to have with the genre is that it’s rarely big enough: the pieces are there, but the mix can feature only so many frequencies, so the strings become a gauzy mush and the vocals are chained to the floor. By bringing Tarja into the fold, Within Temptation tip their intent: a split between pop renown and architectural credibility. Sharon’s melody on the verses is sticky and just a big surprise, the chorus reeks of the Euro-pop all-smiles-to-all-people sensibility, but Tarja uncorks a harrowing solo that renders the guitar showcase a little moot. It’s all a bit like watching a fantasy epic at home: the experience isn’t rendered as crisply, but it’s certainly a cozy experience.
[8]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This is a cut-and-paste job of every uptempo female-lead pop-metal classical ostentatiousness cliché ever AND it still rocks. And this comes from someone who spent Metal Hammer-subscription teen years sneering at the existence of Nightwish and their acolytes; somewhere, Cristina Scabbia feels some type of way that she wasn’t invited.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Knowing of this music only what I gleaned from a few years watching the charts in northern Europe, Tarja Turunen’s old band Nightwish seemed both kin and competition to Within Temptation; here Tarja is not so much either, more a gothic background presence that adds some shade to the straightforward wallop of the chorus. Pop metal is at its best for me when it is sumptuous and anthemic — you wouldn’t have to try very hard to turn this into a Euro-banger — and “Paradise” is lighters-waving, brooding and poppy all at the same time. The bass grumbles, the drums pump like an engine and the string touches bring a level of drama that is pure decadence.
[8]

Next week we’re going to sell out completely.

[Video][Myspace]
[5.88]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: If a noxious MMORPG tie-in – intended to make a new character look badass – reminds you that theSTART’s “Like Days” was great in its buoyant sneering, is its existence worthwhile?
[6]

Alfred Soto: Punky. Also clunky.
[5]

Iain Mew: It seems odd for such a great song to be written specifically for a YouTube trailer for a video game, but hey, such commercial arrangements work in Japan. And while we’re there, who Agnete Kjølsrud as Jinx most reminds me of is Japanese singer Anna Tsuchiya. Like her, Kjølsrud turns up the furious rock affectations in her voice as far as they will go, and sounds like she’s having the time of her life doing so. “Get Jinxed” supplies the giant sized pop-punk hooks to match. Tsuchiya’s best stuff was inspired by a fictional character, too!
[8]

Anthony Easton: This kind of reminds me of the best of LiLiPUT/Kleenex — squelching guitars and vocals on the edge of pixie working against each other for a little over two and a half minutes. It’s an aesthetic I could use more of. 
[8]

Will Adams: Was Kerli unavailable?
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Unsure what to do for Halloween, Lene Nystrøm decided to go as Nana Mizuki. It’s a two-listen wonder but those two listens might be one of the best five minutes of your month.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Way, way out at the other end of the ad-placement spectrum as NONONO, we find “Get Jinxed”: a Norwegian metal singer in a League of Legends tie-in, voicing a character with a gun named Pow-Pow and skills called “Flame Chompers!” and “Super Mega Death Rocket!” Half of you have already dismissed it. For the other half, how do I even describe this? Sleigh Bells if Alexis learned vox in a tweenpop The Lovely Eggs and Derek only knew Guitar Hero? Fight Like Apes if all their songs were “Digifucker” and all the slow parts were Dragonforce? If Harley Quinn sang and was also a Chucky doll? I don’t know that I’ll ever contextualize this right. But I do know what to listen to when new music starts sounding predictable.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Definitely using this to ward off latecoming trick-or-treaters. If the squeaking vox don’t do it, the farting bass will.
[1]

Check with your provider whether you qualify for an early handset upgrade.

[Video][Website]
[5.18]

Patrick St. Michel: More like MEHMEHMEH.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: The game has changed, but the aim is the same. Rather than trying to get your quirky, chirpy pop song in a TV show, you just need to get a minute of it in a commercial. At that dosage, “Pumping Blood” quite pleasurable; the whistling is fun, the melody catchy and the overall sound is crisp and joyful. It’s a smart, breezy earworm. Though in actuality, the ad is cut down from the full song, the full song doesn’t feel like it has anything I don’t get from the snippet — it’s a nice sound whose song I can take or leave.
[5]

Cédric Le Merrer: I remember reading something way back in the 90’s about why “What A Wonderful World” was used in so many TV ads. Apparently, it came down to two factors that converged on few songs like they did on Louis Armstong’s: it was universally known and 100% positive. By then Levi’s had already started rewriting the book on music in ads, and today using music by unknown bands has become the norm. Unfortunately, the early 00’s iPod campaign, while seemingly following in Levi’s footsteps, contributed to a developing economic paradigm in which some bands, usually through whistles, harmonized shouts and twee feel good lyrics, crafted songs specifically for the twisted ear of the advertising executive. Why any normal human being would listen to this voluntarily is beyond me.
[0]

Juana Giaimo: This song is good enough to make me wish I knew how to whistle. After the intro, Stina Wappling continues to entertain us with her childish voice and her playful melody, which is unfortunately never as charming as that whistle.  
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: On a chart of musical whistle happiness levels, Goldfrapp’s “Lovely Head” would be at the bottom, and this would be at the top. Wistful is the way for most whistles — even when unintended — so they have to be full-throated (full-lipped?) to signify flat-out joy, and that’s what NONONO manage, only ever stopping metaphorically, to fulfil some kind of “laughing all the way to the bank” scenario. Earning potential is yet to be maximised though — there are only two days left for a pumpkin-based rewrite.
[7]

Will Adams: Pleasant enough to toss onto a road trip playlist, but not engaging enough to pique interest in the rest of the band’s artistry. Expect to hear this endlessly for three months and then never again.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The string/brass hits are handled magnificently. They drop and disperse like food coloring in water. I certainly don’t mind the first-grade science lesson of the chorus; it’s nice to be reminded of a good song’s primary effect.
[8]

Anthony Easton: When I was a kid, I was shown a tanker trunk, as an example of how God makes everything, and that nothing is designed by accident. I thought that would be the most awkward blood pumping metaphor in my life. It might still win, because declarative statements aren’t really metaphors. Extra point for the whistling. 
[3]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: A generous click and clack around the best that 2007’s blogs and Nissan commercials have to offer.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Complaining about commercial deals in 2013 is like complaining about major-label deals in 1993: utterly boring. I don’t watch commercials, anyway, so I can hear this for what this is, which is a billion times better than anything called “NONONO – Pumpin Blood” should be. Stina Wappling’s prickliness gives her value over replacement frontwoman, and her producers have bigger stuff in them than whistle hooks. If the bridge doesn’t convince you (ripped from “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” or not), listen to “Human Being“: a [9], at least. Sometimes the machine works.
[7]

Iain Mew: Whoever extracted the few seconds of “Pumpin Blood” used for the advert that’s presumably the cause of its impending success, they did a great job. The blown out distorted vocals for “the whole wide world is whistling” provide more life-affirming effect than the rest of the song put together. Still, it’s not that the rest is bad, just a bit underpowered, and that whistle is quite the hook.
[6]

Look, at least it’s not a transparent euphemism for an erection. Unless it is.

[Video][Website]
[3.89]

Brad Shoup: Avicii, you crazy for this one!
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Sounds like someone remixed a Folger’s Coffee ad into a generic club banger.
[2]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I don’t think it’s churlish to demand a hook from my bozo jams and these two are happy to give you more than one: tragicomic alcohol puns (“a night you won’t remember/I’ll be the one you won’t forget”), lumberjack hollers, shoehorned oohs’n’ahhs, Pitbull leading an EDM ceilidh like it’s “Culo”, a harmonica riff Avicii couldn’t clear in time. It confuses the following until they all begin to look like the same thing: the blues and “Cotton-Eye Joe,” clown-shoe come-ons and bonafide sex appeal, Dynasty-era Jay nimbleness and just bellowing loudly, “Crazy Kids” Ke$ha and “Round Round” Ke$ha. “Timber” is terrible, but it has enough chutzpah to make everything in its orbit sound like too many drinks and too many base inhibitions. It’s great at being crap.
[4]

Will Adams: For all the naysayers who question whether Pitbull is still necessary, here’s your rebuttal: Two years ago it was Lindsay Lohan, now it’s Miley Cyrus. He just needs to update his cultural references, is all! Meanwhile, Ke$ha tries to reprise the hook singer role that first introduced her to the masses, but it makes no sense. At this point, she’s shown too much persona to justify being relegated to the chorus. I can’t fault her too much, though, given the song she’s asked to work with: dear Lord, this thing is one fiddle away from being “Cotton Eye Joe.”
[3]

Mallory O’Donnell: Oddly, “Timber” enumerates the current dismal state of crass dance crossover nuggets for the very same reasons it stands out, as it were, from the pack. This field has been so over-mined of late that the once dominant Pitbull is reduced to latching his house clownmobile to a hoedown passed over by Rednex and a completely limp lumberjack analogy in a desperate attempt to sound different. Kesha advertises her wares and promises a “night you won’t remember” but Pitbull’s already forgotten knocking down this particular bit of hardwood.
[3]

Anthony Easton: How Ke$ha sings “Timber” and how Pitbull sings “swing your partner round and round” makes me wonder — where is the dance remix of fab square dancing? In Mexican pop you see the inclusion of polkas, so it is not outside the realm of possibility, but the closest pop has gotten is maybe McLaren, and that was a bit too precious. Pitbull could be the person to revive the instinct. 
[4]

Crystal Leww: Ke$ha hasn’t sounded this nondescript, lifeless, and boring since…well, the time that she sang the hook to a Flo Rida song.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: You know what I just re-listened to? “Larger Than Life.” You know what happens in the first few seconds of “Larger Than Life”? “EEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!” Why do I dredge this up? Because the ’90s if your pop song’s hook is “timber,” someone should eventually yell “TIMBER!”. Pitbull might, if he weren’t busy with his EDM “The Farmer and the Cowman,” which in 2013 equals trendy somehow. Ke$ha might, if this weren’t probably the reason she stopped talking to Dr. Luke. It is literally the least they could do. I feel cheated.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The harmonica and hand claps and Ke$hanomics belong in a song without Pitbullistics.
[5]

CRASS patch!!!

[Video][Website]
[6.12]

Rebecca A. Gowns: A nice slow burn. Sleepy, but dreaming of Prince. And Mary J Blige. Together, doing karaoke of Beyonce’s “Start Over.” And it’s 2am, it’s last call, you’re drunk, and you need to call a taxi cab, but for some reason the taxi driver is Miguel?? And your high school teacher astronomy teacher tries to steal your cab? And all of a sudden you’re having sex? One of those kinds of dreams.
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Primetime” is a classically-minded lover’s jam that is tickled by the sheer idea of a proposition, which may be down to Monáe. For her many gifts, she is not the type of performer that can make something like “Primetime” glide – she lacks the effortless appeal to flirt, instead overexerting herself to the point of stiffness. It makes sense, then, to have Miguel on her team. He is a true professional at this type of thing, is the type of performer who can communicate lust with a coo or a mumble. Here he’s politely following his duet partner’s lead, which is simultaneously a sweet triumph for equality and a slight disappointment. Monae’s secret weapon Kalenda Parker steps in with a guitar solo that aims to eroticise all that’s come before: it’s pretty cute, which is the problem with “Primetime.”
[6]

Jessica Doyle: I am more of a sucker for Janelle Monáe than some of y’all — a genderbent queer redo of “Hey Ya!”? yes, ma’am — but this feels oddly tame. Does Miguel usually sound so mushy-mouthed? It doesn’t make me want to giggle with glee the way “Bought the house, but I’m allergic to the housepets” did, and that makes sense, but it doesn’t make me want to curl up with a lover, either.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Primetime is the napping hour, with the clock radio alarm set to Listless Snare and the guitar set to Football All-Stars Tribute to Prince at Super Bowl.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Had Miguel or Monáe chosen to sing this by themselves it would still have been excellent: the percussion loop and high background oohs give each performer the space to inhabit this tale of love in bloom. Miguel develops his obsession with the Zombies, Monáe continues to shed archandroidism. After his Mariah Carey collaboration “#Beautiful” he should stick to trad R&B pairings instead of palling around with the likes of J. Cole and Wale. The guitar solo and string bits in the last third are an ideal coda.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Monáe is clever and talented and inventive, and Miguel’s (on paper) a perfect foil but when you’re upstaged by a guitar solo that you make the listener wait nearly four minutes for… well, I can see myself finding this slick and erotic if it didn’t make me want to go to sleep. All the cute overarching concepts and video treatments to match don’t change that for me, sadly.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: In which Team Monáe realises the guy whose style they’re aping is, for once, not a hundred years old, and decide to give him a call. Said guy realizes it’s one of his awesomest songs, even though he hasn’t written it. Everyone agrees it’s only fair he gets to sing on it and have a featuring credit, but of course the real star is the guitarist.
[9]

Iain Mew: It doesn’t feel right that someone could be upstaged on their own single by a guest appearance so restrained, but the secret is that the bass shuffle is on Miguel’s side. The guitar solo definitely is.
[7]