Snoop Dogg Jukebox Genre-Watch: G-funk, K-pop, EDM, Katy Perry, reggae, Latin pop, and now… gospel!

[Video]
[5.57]

Jonathan Bradley: A bouncy summer groove and Charlie Wilson in the cut, feeling himself, riffing on god and joy and all that. Gee, Snoop sure is letting the hook ride out, isn’t he? No matter; he’s just letting the track breathe. His rap’s gonna hit even harder for it when it does come in. Yup, yup… yup… here we go… Snoop? Hello? Snoop? Snoop?
[4]

Julian Axelrod: The real story here is that feature delegation. This is Charlie Wilson’s song, and Snoop Dogg never shows up. But Snoop is one of the only people with the juice to drop a high profile gospel album in 2018, so he gets top billing.  As for the song itself, it’s a solid hymnal of resilience and gratitude with some dynamic production touches. (That vibraslap!) Wilson is a consummate pro who gives the track some welcome warmth and personality, but it runs out of steam about halfway through. It could use another element to liven things up — something like, I don’t know, a Snoop verse?
[6]

Tim de Reuse: Snoop is totally absent on what is nominally his own track, which I guess is just as well because I have no idea where he’d fit in. The loose, overlapping layers of instrumentation and the exquisitely Thundercat-esque electronics mesh together into a pleasantly chaotic mass of activity. The most spellbinding parts come when there’s five things going on at once, largely unconcerned with each other, but unfortunately much of the song’s back half decides to be a bit more focused and a bit too predictable.
[7]

Iain Mew: So thoroughly, unstoppably ingratiating it feels like they’re throwing themselves on the mercy of me as listener in a way that’s frankly unnerving. Luckily I’m in a good mood right now. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: The last time these two collaborated was on the awesome “Signs” fourteen years ago. Snoop finding grace from the Lord is an inevitable career if not personal turn, and hooking up with this avatar of pleasure for innocuous, not quite transcendent, tentative gospel soul is like inviting a friend to church and delighting in the friend’s acceptance. 
[5]

Edward Okulicz: I don’t really know much gospel music other than what’s incidentally appeared in other media I’ve consumed, but this sure sounds like a bunch of very recognisable gospel signifiers placed together in a semi-competent way and sung with friendliness and warmth by Charlie Wilson. It certainly is a gospel song with the nominal involvement of Snoop Dogg, and him striking some amusing poses in the video while Wilson goes for it as much on screen as he does on record. Not sure what Snoop actually did other than that, but if he arranged it he did a nice job too. Perhaps God doesn’t need a hypeman but a Snoop track could do with some Snoop, right?
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: As someone who’s often struggled with faith, I’ve always found soulful gospel music more compelling than Christian rock or rap. It feels more authentic and lived in than Christian music and it almost always feels more passionate. Here, Charlie Wilson gives a terrific turn singing about how he felt saved by God’s good graces, and though I find myself swaying with him and the choir, I still can’t do much more than smile along to the track due to my own confusion and struggles with faith. But — Charlie sounds great and I’m always a fan of some good organ-backed choir.
[6]

Guess which one we want to remember and which we want to forget…

[Video]
[4.43]

Iain Mew: Everyone having remembered to forget Shakira’s take on the subject, here’s another one, content to let the cleverness of the title sit there and not do much with it. Miguel’s role is barely distinguishable from anyone on one of Kygo’s stream of hits, and paradoxically it’s when his voice is chopped up into a phantom calling through the fog that he stands out most and gives the song a brief and lovely sense of identity.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Kygo got Miguel to sing over his tepid electronic crap — he doesn’t need vocal frippery. 
[3]

Will Adams: Miguel’s voice is a compelling instrument on its own, so he’s a particularly poor choice for Kygo, whose defining trick is chopping vocals to evoke a disembodied yearning. This combined with the plodding stomp makes “Remind Me to Forget” the strongest evidence of Kygo’s recent coasting; he’s just feeding pop stars through a tube.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Miguel’s line-final open vowels are ideal for the cut-ups Kygo customarily supplies here. Imagine how much more boring it would be if their source had been close-vowel words like “you” or “me.” Instead, they give “mark!”, “heart!”, “forget!”, all swirling and rotating until they make a suggestion of “scar!” and ultimately merge into each other. That is canny writing — combining the lyrical and the non-lyrical to the aid rather than detriment of the emotion. There are plenty of ways to crack a nut, but if Kygo is to teach the world anything, it’s that even if you pick just one, there are still plenty of ways of going about it.
[8]

Cédric Le Merrer: Things start off fine enough, with minimal production letting Miguel’s singing take center stage. By the one minute mark, though, Kygo’s trop tropes have taken over and it’s getting really hard to pay any attention to the song.
[4]

Stephen Eisermann: Miguel has a wonderful voice, so it’s extremely frustrating to see him waste it on such mediocre songs. Kygo’s never really impressed with his production/music, but this melancholic take on a bad relationship is especially boring and is only as good as Miguel’s vocal turn allows it to be.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Really don’t understand burying Miguel’s vocal for the big chorus beneath that swamp of filters, especially over so bland a build up of tame, pared-down dance drive. But then again I honestly don’t understand why Kygo’s ever upheld as a particular standard bearer in EDM to begin with.
[3]

Zombie Uncle Kracker vs. Symphonic Robot Duck: coming to a theater near you!

[Video]
[4.22]

Alfred Soto: Although he still sells records and, more importantly, reliably sells out stadiums, Keith Urban must be looking at Brad Paisley’s recent returns and tugging at his collar. The banjo-as-sound-effect and sound-effect-as-sound-effect that are the hallmarks of the Sam Hunt woodshop swamp a song he would have sprinkled a shitload of guitars on in 2011. I hope Julia Michaels appreciated the payday.
[4]

Will Adams: The formula of pairing massive country dude and up-and-coming female pop singer for as broad appeal as possible feels increasingly cynical. J.R. Rotem manages to do something interesting with the genre purée in spots — namely, the breakdowns where the slide guitar and tuned kicks circle each other. The rest is Man of the Woods-level bilge which neither Keith nor Julia sound too invested in.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: Apparently, Keith Urban was one of the seven people who enjoyed Rob Thomas’s solo albums; so much so, in fact, that he full on copied one of the tracks and slapped on Julia Michaels to make sure that nobody would notice. Jokes on you, though, Keith, as I was also one of the seven who enjoyed those albums and Rob did this style much better.
[3]

Jonathan Bradley: “Coming Home” shuffles and handclaps with a sparse groove like it’s the back half of the 1990s and Beck has just taught OPM and Primitive Radio Gods that dusty beats and looped guitar fragments deserve to belong on alternative radio. It’s a neat sound — and one entirely ill-suited to Keith Urban’s over-earnest over-emoting. I just hope it’s a big enough hit to garner copy-cats: country music should have its own “Steal My Sunshine,” even if it has to endure zombie Uncle Kracker to get it.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: This would be so much better if someone — anyone — just let loose a bit. The production is intricate and fussy and hard to grasp on to if you’re looking for a hook, and Urban is stiff and unsympathetic, though it’s quite a nice melody. He goes home to his famous wife and an enormous house but sounds too bored to live. I had to play Michaels’s verse in isolation from the rest of the song to remember it. Someone put a real guitar on this thing!
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Quiet as kept, this is really just a Julia Michaels song featuring Keith Urban, but it’s his attempt at negotiating with trying to go after some of that Rhett/Hunt money. Most ironically, the results is that this wall of cacophonous samples and gimmicks ends up feeling like Keith Urban’s “Jack & Diane,” albeit a bit too peacocky in the vocal performance. For all the whizzing about however, there isn’t much of a solid song to land, and it’s ultimately a waste of Michaels’s time and talents.
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: Flubbed guitar strumming doesn’t stop the monkey drums and flat-nosed bass from saving this average Aussie rock from crumbling. Also, Julia Michaels slinks in at the last bridge and swipes the song away.
[6]

Iain Mew: The text about wanting to go back somewhere where everybody knows his name is uninvolving, and Michaels’s verse an unnecessary diversion, but “Coming Home” makes those minor concerns with its sound. I’m always likely to go for anything with a part scored for symphonic robot duck, and the cacophonous crescendo approach gives it the feeling of a big journey home with all of the exertion and anticipation involved.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: The bait-and-switch rhyme in the chorus caught me off-guard, I’ll grant, but Urban’s complaints about the soul-sucking evils of city life are just too shallow and unconvincing. Come on, man, griping about the alienation of modern city life is the lowest-hanging fruit — take thirty seconds with a thesaurus and get at least a little fake-deep, you know, make a show of it! Maybe it’s just because I have too complicated a relationship with my own hometown to relate to the song’s central premise, but there isn’t a damn line in here memorable or thoughtful or catchy enough to justify the four-chord drama it so weepily indulges in.
[2]

Not a cover of the classic originally made famous by Vanessa Carlton…

[Video]
[6.83]

Claire Biddles: I don’t know what I like more: The song, or the audacity it took to give it that title.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: Just three years ago, BiSH sang this narrative of being “shit idols,” desperate to climb from the bottom and be loved by anybody. Now they sell out arenas, and with popularity comes a change in image and sound. “Paint It Black” may be their cleanest in production, and their darkness easier to swallow, but they’ve yet to lose any of their self-determined drive that made them so compelling to follow as underdogs. Their desire to be better sounds like a scripted cliche — “I give up on giving up” — than their past work, but the rough edges present in each of the six’s voices ensure they’re still the odd and awkward idols trying their sincere best.
[8]

Tim de Reuse: The casiocore artificiality works as a gimmick because of how hard it’s leaned into; the unconvincing bass patch and pitiful snare sample sound exuberant when sequenced at such breakneck speeds. Add that to the sugary pop-punk guitar treatment and the laser-focus on delivering earworm after earworm, and there’s really no room to sit back and overthink things like I usually do — wait, shit, am I having fun?
[8]

Jessica Doyle: Man, it’s been too long since I got to reap some of the energy of chaotic-at-first-sight guitar lines. The high-speed trading off, and the live performances in which the singers seem to be pulling the chorus out of the backs of their brains, make it all even better.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: This could have been a lot of fun with its turbocharged hooks and guitars, but dear god this song sounds like ass. The bass and drums just don’t have any momentum and it makes what should be a thrill ride sound static and flat, as BiSH shriek to no avail, willing the song forward as it crashes into a wall instead.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: As the greater nexus of WACK, a particularly bemusing eyesore in the Japanese music scene, continues to survive past a point of willful compromise, the groups have spent the last year defining themselves to new forms: BiS as a carnival of foolishness, Gang Parade as earnest triumph over the anguish of life, Billie Idle as self-confident pastiche work and BiSH as the surprising lackeys turned flagships with their blistering eagerness to embody disappointment. BiSH have never been personal faves for me but in falling down the rabbit hole with them, you appreciate all of these moronic kids for their dedication to be so earnestly shambolic. “Paint it Black” relishes in a knowing sense of failure and being bad, thereby demonstrating how much more punk a bunch of idols have managed to be compared to any “punk” act in the last 30 years or so. The strength of their rebellion isn’t in upheaval, but in an acceptance of failure to be “good.” No matter how generic their home productions guitar thrash is, the girls are just unabashed in letting everyone else down just to make sure they do them, and in that reluctant glumness is where their strength lies.
[7]

D:

[Video]
[5.17]

Julian Axelrod: There’s nothing I actively dislike about “Barbie Tingz,” aside from the title and the inane pre-chorus. And I admire the restrained production, which lets Nicki bounce zingers off the springy 808s like my dad playing racquetball. But it feels aggressively inessential, not so much a comeback single as a Soundcloud loosie. If this came out in 2014, the internet would lose its collective shit. But it’s 2018, and rap culture can now accommodate more than one badass shit-talking female MC. (Three, to be exact.) That’s good news for us, but bad news for Nicki Minaj. 
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: The accidental segues into echoes of “Roxanne’s Revenge” type drums establishing a link to the first GOAT female rapper of all time and her borough’s last great rapper is a small treasure for me but I’ll be absolutely honest: Nicki’s spark appears more and more diminished each year. It’s not so much that the bars have dulled particularly, its the conviction of each performance more and more relies less on her melodramatic hysteria and a sort of generic brashness that really does keep her at the level of Cardi and Remy that she insists she’s above. Her snipes, boasts and brags don’t work to elevate her but diminish her. So between “Barbie” and sister single “Chun Li,” long awaited singles after a weird period where a novelty Rae Sremmurd remix was supposed to be a respectable appetizer, I have to wonder even as a fan: how is Nicki supposed to demonstrate any designs towards superiority? Is it in the pop singles that she’s so easily mocked for, or is it entrenching herself further and further into generic NYC mixtape rap that she’d transcended once upon a time? Fact is, it’s worryingly fair to say Nicki doesn’t know the answer to that, either.
[4]

Will Adams: The sudden switches to the booming drums and perkier delivery à la “Itty Bitty Piggy” or “Stupid Hoe” are meant to evoke the Nicki of yore, I suppose. But it only serves to show much much she’s simmered down since then. The rest is standard subdued swagger that’s not sonically engaging enough to elevate Nicki’s cruise control verses.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: Strictly speaking on the music, “Barbie Tingz” is a warm-up exercise before the Pinkprint follow-up; the sparse drum-and-bass track lays a fine platform for Nicki to let loose. But the past several one-offs by Nicki since “No Frauds” have closely coincided with some off-record narrative enough to warp blank shots into potentially targeted jabs, and “Barbie Tingz” likewise carries a suspicious air of the personal, thanks to the now-simmered Cardi B drama. I can’t help but hear some insecurities behind her relentless punches, as if she feels the need to keep up her guard at all times to not show weakness.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: Though her recent features have made it easy to forget, there’s no denying that Nicki Minaj is a damn good rapper. Here, on an aggressive trap beat, Nicki lets loose while rapping about how much of an influence she’s had on the new female rappers hitting the scene. And, well, she’s not wrong; look, with all of the hype and the fun recent singles, it’s been easy to claim otherwise, but with the controlled flow and rhymes found here, it becomes clear: Nicki Minaj is the best mainstream female rapper, and she’s finally back delivering quality tracks.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The throwback beat would be too easy for anybody else except this comeback move, where Nicki Minaj demonstrates her facility: snapping syllables, imitating haters. But it’s still rather rote skill flaunting. 
[6]

Pseudonym pseudoscience…

[Video]
[4.50]

Will Adams: Numb, plodding Spotify fodder that turns the hypothetical of “James Blake remixed by Robin Schulz” into an unasked-for reality.
[4]

Alfred Soto: There isn’t much here to the Israeli musician’s single except the homogenized rue suitable for global consumption. 
[3]

Claire Biddles: It’s maybe an oxymoron, but the listlessness of “Nevermind” is its defining feature. It coasts through its two-and-a-half minutes anchored by repetitive vocal sounds rather than definitive lyrics, just pleasant enough to tick along on repeat in the background but with nothing to differentiate it from the rest of the sort-of-folk, sort-of-funk, sort-of-music that surrounds it on Spotify. In a kind of depressing Time Out interview that positions Lloyd (not his real name) as a marketer first and a musician — or rather “product” — second, he explains that his pseudonym was chosen “to serve as an international stage name that would give [my] audience the feeling that they’ve heard it before.” I think that’s a neat enough metaphor for bland streaming-bait, don’t you?
[3]

Andy Hutchins: In fairness, picking the stage name Dennis Lloyd “after searching the internet to find something catchy that would feel familiar to audiences all around the world” as an Israeli with a distinctively Jewish name is substantially less embarrassing than Scotsman Adam Wiles adopting Calvin Harris to sound black “a bit more racially ambiguous,” but it still feels like there’s some Lizzy Grant-style obfuscation going on here. Probably, that will not matter to most if Lloyd can make more songs like this remix of his own “Nevermind,” a gorgeously blurry traipse through dry ice mist by a jackass who knows full well how him leaving will go and how non-hypothetical his threats are — but given that this was the remix improving on the largely unremarkable original, and that it traces melodies from Chance’s “All Night,” released between the original “Nevermind” and the remix, one wonders how many revisions Nir Tibor will be afforded.
[8]

Ryo Miyauchi: Dennis Lloyd wants you to admire his finely constructed loop, and boy, do things circle endlessly without a bump during its run. It’s nice to lose yourself in the prettiness, but the chant-like chorus quickly starts to sound like indecipherable gibberish as it drifts upon its own rhyme. As he shakes the numbness off with a “never mind,” I’m not too sure if Lloyd himself knows what it all means either.
[4]

Stephen Eisermann: When I was single, I always had the same scenario run through my head when I’d meet someone I was considering dating. I’d overthink what the possibilities could be and I’d essentially have a montage of made up memories flash through my head at lightning speed. They always ended badly, and I swear the same song played during every one of these episodes (it’s not weird for your brain to soundtrack your thoughts, right?), but I have never been able to recreate the song — until now. This song perfectly captures that nervous energy you feel when you’re considering giving someone a chance; but just like that feeling, it’s not all that enjoyable. 
[5]

Let’s not…

[Video]
[2.14]

Micha Cavaseno: Yet another installment in the persistent battle against the reality that Zayn is not the star that the industry is happy to break their back over. “Let Me” features vocals that are both shrill and emotionally devoid, a generic gloop of faux-Miguel/Weeknd vibes smoothed out to Kenny G status, and lyrics that could only be the result of someone who’s never been told that just because they’re pretty they’re not romantic (duvets and vanilla ice cream?) delivered with no sense of melody. It’s an appalling error, and were this some sort of bizarre viral construction that we were all mocking on Twitter for a week I’d be less taken aback, but no! It’s a Zayn single.
[0]

Katherine St Asaph: Limpid ’80s schlock revived by kids who listen to “Africa” as a meme, gooey-strummy ’00s boy-band ballad schlock revived by a singer whose boy-band era had better songs, ’10s Zayn career revived by someone, for some reason. Extra point because a sex song involving “vanilla ice cream” is a self-own so hilariously vicious I’m not convinced it was an accident.
[1]

Will Adams: Zayn being unconvincing as a ~sweet, tender lover~ is a given by now, but “Let Me” takes it to hilarious levels. The diner booth vinyl R&B appears cribbed from Bruno Mars, and Zayn reupholsters it with a pile of hollow references. We’ve got vanilla ice cream from Fifty Shades Freed, dirty dancing as meaningless as Jessie J’s, long walks on the beach from every dating profile parody, and “let me love you”‘s dripping with “PLEEEEASE” subtext from everything.
[2]

Alfred Soto: He doesn’t explain how he can dirty dance one moment yet find duvets, vanilla ice cream, and Billy Ocean guitar licks sexy the next. 
[3]

Claire Biddles: Assuring that “I promise that I’ll be faithful” like only a boy who hasn’t previously been can, Zayn is in Poundshop The Weeknd mode on “Let Me,” a one-size-fits-all breezy slow jam that is too saccharine to be convincing. Carefree Scumbag Boyfriend Zayn™ is way more compelling (and believable!) than Earnest Sex Man Zayn™ — if only he could lean into his overt dirtbag tendencies without filtering them through cringe-y statements like “our sex has meaning.”
[4]

Lauren Gilbert: Zayn appears to be trying to lean into his image as “The One You Lust After,” but really all he’s managing here is “the boring one.”  Musically, it’s forgettable, and the lyrics are even less notable. It’s not bad, but it’s not anything enough to be good either.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Sounding for all the world like a pound shop Weeknd tried to shoot for some of those “That’s What I Like” money and Grammy trophies, “Let Me” shoots for bath bombs and champagne, but its soft sheet production and invocations of sensuous comfort are as odourless as they are tasteless. Sexless, too, actually worse, because this song could cure arousal in seconds. As if the narrator of this song doesn’t say this to all the girls!
[2]

Buy a boat? In this economy?

[Video]
[3.83]

Thomas Inskeep: A little too “Kum Ba Yah” in its sentiments — and the banjo sounds phony as hell. 
[4]

Julian Axelrod: It’s been fascinating watching bro country’s figureheads respond to the US’s descent into fascist hell with Life Is Good platitudes and summer anthems for people who own a lake. To be fair, no one actually wants to hear a Kenny Chesney song about the alt-right. But “Get Along” can’t even commit to its own misguided premise, with a weird second verse that seems to condemn a nice girl with a modeling gig who seems to have followed the song’s advice. The chorus is just a grab bag of middle-class white people mantras that makes you wonder if every country singer really thinks singing “Call your mom” qualifies them for woke bae status. (That said, there’s something morbidly hilarious about imagining Chesney hearing the plight of a disenfranchised person of color and earnestly replying, “Have you tried buying a boat?”) This song wants to remind you of carefree summer days, but it mostly recalls a dog sitting in a burning room.
[4]

Will Adams: In fairness to Chesney, “can’t we all get along” is more pithy than “can’t we all recognize that there are people with vastly different life experiences than our own and with that comes extreme inequalities — across a variety of factors, including race, gender, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, disability, etc. — that will require a deep examination of our ideologies and creating solutions to rectify that inequality and NO drinking beer around a campfire doesn’t count as a solution.”
[2]

Edward Okulicz: I don’t resent Chesney for releasing something so lacking in cognizance of why people can’t get along. He’s smart enough to know exactly why and craven enough to try to milk it for a hit. I actually resent the hypothetical audience blithe enough to swallow it, but the song at least has the amicable tone it’s aiming for, a placebo marketed as an indigestion remedy.
[4]

Stephen Eisermann: Pleasant little folky country-pop track bogged down by a ridiculous chorus and tone deaf message. Also, I’m sorry, if I went to a Kenny Chesney concert I would not chant along to the laundry list chorus that sounds more like a list of chores than anything else.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Play guitar. Make me yawn. Get a life. 
[4]

Those pants get a [10] though.

[Video]
[6.14]

Leah Isobel: Seeing Janelle Monae do something this explicitly, unavoidably gay is fabulous. Her clipped, coy phrasing in the verses gradually opens up, persuading the production to follow suit, until the chorus hits with a beaming “YEAHHHHH!” accompanied by an equally joyful guitar riff; that build-and-release structure is candy-sweet and really hard to resist. The accompanying imagery is a little bitter for me. “Pynk” feels so personal, so heartfelt, and so liberating for her that I can’t help but feel like a killjoy when I say it doesn’t fully connect with me. It’s not because it’s a bad song, but because of my creeping suspicion that its vision of utopian womanhood leaves me locked outside its gates. It’s there in the chorus’s color-coded lyrics, the femininity celebrated as uniformly pretty and soft and gentle as the song’s blooping synths. It’s especially there in how the video retrofits the message with Pussy Power and Sex Cells emblazoned across Monae’s body. I can’t fault her for finding joy and freedom in her own reality, but the more I think about it the more I feel like it doesn’t fit in mine. I want to love this song so badly. But I don’t.
[6]

Stephen Eisermann: Janelle’s third LP is turning out to be better than I could’ve hoped for and “Pynk” is a goddamn masterpiece. The bubble-gum, electric, R&B fusion complements this celebration of femeninity so well and Janelle gives a terrifically instructive and robotic interpretation. This is pop art at its best — fun, engaging, but, above all, relevant. 
[10]

Alfred Soto: I do what I rarely do and watched the video first. I’m glad: it’s a minor masterpiece of queer representation. When I played “Pynk” it didn’t disappoint, it too an excellent queer-refracted take on machine funk, for which Aerosmith should be delighted about sharing writing credit.
[7]

Alex Clifton: I can’t remember hearing Janelle Monáe ever so soft and vulnerable, which is lovely — I’d like more of this style (although my favourite Janelle is always going to be when she’s going at five thousand miles an hour). But I’m just not getting this one, I guess. It’s delicate, it’s fine, but the first listen was great and every subsequent listen has been with diminishing returns. But if it works for other people — makes them feel empowered and brave and beautiful — then that’s cool.
[5]

Claire Biddles: “Pynk” puts my teeth on edge. Everything here is kind of embarrassing: The neither-here-nor-there production (it’s Grimes! Of course!), the giggly refusal to follow through on the (pretty simplistic) suggestions of lyrical double entendre, the ad-lib sections that are barely worthy of a vocal warmup. It’s tinny and weak and I had to listen to about two hours of Nicki Minaj to wash the sickly taste of it out of my mouth.
[2]

Julian Axelrod: Janelle Monae is on an otherworldly hot streak right now, in the sense that her singles sound like intergalactic pop music beamed in from two dimensions over. Consider this: “Pynk” is a surreal ode to cunnilingus that opens with vagina pants and the line “Pink like the inside of your baby,” and it’s probably the most straightforward song she’s released since “Primetime.” But like an (Arch)android who’s finally deciphered human emotion, Monae’s learned how to convey large concepts without sacrificing an ounce of pop magic. Come for the knotty gender musings, stay for the exuberant chorus that transports you to a convertible in the desert, with the wind in your hair and Tessa Thompson by your side.
[9]

Edward Okulicz: I’ve usually found Monáe to be fussy and fun-free, with her songs failing to live up to the conceptual highs she must aspire to and seldom having the pop hooks to compensate. “You Make Me Feel” is a wonderful exception, but this one isn’t. There’s a lot going on but it’s fidgety and boring to listen to, despite its queerness, and let’s face it: “Pink” by Aerosmith is a deeply terrible song, even by 90s Aerosmith standards. (Maybe if she’d interpolated “Falling In Love (Is Hard on the Knees”, eh?)
[4]