Plain sound…

[Video][Website]
[4.33]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: A slight improvement from last time, mainly owed to the interesting surprise of a vocoder used in the bridge. The rest is generic pretty-people pop, weighed down by the rinky-dink opening guitar melody which sounds like intense intestinal distress.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: A bland, passive country song enlivened — if that’s the right word — by obnoxious penis-music bwoings.
[3]

Will Adams: That pitch-shifted banjo sample will haunt my dreams.
[4]

David Moore: Passable pop-country lemonade, albeit with a saccharine chemical aftertaste. 
[5]

Steacy Easton: The only interesting thing about this is the steel drums, but the steel drums are really interesting. 
[6]

Juana Giaimo: I enjoy how straightforward this song is. Sometimes you just need a simple beat, a stripped-down guitar, a repetitive chorus and weird synth sounds.
[6]

Coming soon to Channel 5…

[Video]
[7.00]

David Moore: I’ve been tracking post-“Old Town Road” hybrids and they generally range from “not as good as ‘Old Town Road’” to whatever this is. This one is interesting because, despite going the Lil Nas X route of getting a bonafide country radio ringer to do the Trojan-horsing and/or blessing, it sounds like it just as easily could have come from the other direction. Or hell, maybe not — turns out things can change a lot in a year!
[6]

Steacy Easton: Sneakily well-written, and on the right edge of good-dumb, as opposed to dumb-dumb, this snuck up on me, moving the needle from pure contempt to genuine love. I know the commercial reasons why Hunt is involved in this — for both parties, but I am not convinced that he adds much. 
[7]

Katie Gill: This is such a perfect combination? While Billy Ray’s inclusion on “Old Town Road” was mostly because why not include a joke singer on a joke song, Sam Hunt is one of the closest things white boy country music has to a rapper. Hell, the song that made him famous was more rap (or at least spoken word) than country. And granted, this is also 100% a joke song. There’s nothing serious in the DNA of “My Truck,” it is just goofball through and through. But it’s a remarkably well put together and annoyingly catchy goofball song that I’m sure will get these men plenty of money when Ford inevitably plays it behind a F-150 ad, awkwardly leaving out the “smoke my blunt” verse in the process.
[7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Yes, these lyrics are vapid. That “skrrt” hook, though — the way it subverts genre, the way it dovetails with Sam Hunt’s falsetto, the way it inexplicably recalls the best of Niska, the way it feels like someone hypnotically twirling their finger in my hair — it makes me wanna be that truck. 
[7]

Leah Isobel: Sam Hunt sounds great and his inclusion is a fun flex, but something about his contrasting approach doesn’t quite gel. Where Breland’s original track is loose and goofy, Hunt’s brawny vocal presence takes up all the space in the room on the remix. This is probably a [6], but a younger me listening to country in my dad’s, ahem, truck would’ve loved it, so… 
[7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Back when I spent too much time on Tumblr, one of the small pieces of etiquette followed by certain users was the so-called “laugh rule” — if something makes you laugh (like, really makes you laugh), you reblog it. It eliminates all the second-guessing and curation that any social media platform brooks, cutting it down to a base impulse. Is it funny, or not? “My Truck” passes the laugh rule with exceeding power and skill. While “Old Town Road” — very obviously the thing to compare it to — vaguely gestured at the seriousness of Western outlaws and the cowboy mythos, “My Truck” is much more modern in its country trap pastiche. It is not so glorious, which leaves it more room to get comfy in its twang. Sam Hunt helps a lot (which makes sense, because Sam Hunt songs are all half of the way to this anyways), elevating an original that felt more like a funny phrase than a song into something deeply weird and compelling. Against Hunt’s gruffly charming sing-talk, Breland’s ad-libs and falsettos become beautiful irritants and counterpoints. It’s kind of beautiful for a song where Sam Hunt shouts out Bone Thugs.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Breland couldn’t have chosen a better partner than Sam Hunt, master of ecumenical cross-platform crossovers. Every country would-be hit with a trap beat will earn “Old Town Road” comparisons, and “My Truck” is slighter, but listen: in a month when we learn Ahmaud Arbery can’t jog down a street or check out a home under construction, I’ll take this proud what’s-mine-is-mine declaration.
[7]

Don’t worry, his travels are metaphorical…

[Video][Website]
[5.33]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Imagine this song in the happy-go-lucky montage of a Netflix teenage rom-com. It’d be the penultimate episode: amid blue skies and fields of wheat, our young protagonists would take steps to correct the (not-at-all-contrived) wrongs that they committed in the antepenultimate one. They’d be obnoxiously pretty and naive, but you’d root for them anyways. And spoiler alert: they’d get together in the finale. 
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: The diligent but dull mascot of Scottish exceptionalism comes good, not only with his “In Between Days” jangle, but also verses that cut across self-worth and self-sabotage with precision. Cinnamon’s washed-out drawl is for once in exactly the right place, almost purpose-built to convey a battered defeatism that casually takes the shine off the guitars. The one drawback is the chorus, which although strong enough individually, doesn’t cohere thematically with the rest.
[7]

William John: Something like the midpoint of “Summer of 69” and a Travis album track, but without the vigour of the former and the occasional flight of whimsy that the latter might provide; its overwhelming dourness flattens the desperate sentiment of his words.
[3]

Alfred Soto: He’s one of those Real Music dudes — a guitar, a burr, and a lovelorn lyric, and he thinks he’s triumphed over Dua Lipa. Enjoy that #1 album. 
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: Q: Is this what Ed Sheeran would sound like if he weren’t such a boring, pretentious twat? Q2: Or if Billy Bragg had gone for the pop brass ring? A: Both! And it’s so perky! Bonus points for all the swearing.
[7]

Will Adams: A song of hope that stops short of blind optimism — “where we’re going this shit don’t matter” — is appropriate for these times but not unique to them. Similarly, uptempo sun-streaked rock jangle is warmly welcomed by me in these times, but it pretty much always has been.
[7]

Some of us are kind, two of us don’t like marshmallows, most of us are wondering who actually sang this song…

[Video]
[5.00]Juana Giaimo: I was reading the entry on “Happier” and Will (Rivitz)’s blurb made me realize why I find this song quite enjoyable: Marshmello is following the footsteps of The Chainsmokers — fun songs, but a little dark and emotional too. Collaborating with Halsey only confirms it. Her slightly childish voice sounds very intimate here, especially thanks to the smooth keyboards and the soft beat, which remain quiet in the back and let her stand out.
[7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Maybe it’s the times, maybe it’s the opening bars stolen from “Sunflower,” or maybe it’s the bridge which hints at a sonic breakthrough, but this is the most moved I’ve ever felt by a Halsey song. There are still other 10 other pop stars I’d rather hear sing this, though.
[6]

Hannah Jocelyn: In the same week that Ellie Goulding finally sounds like herself in a single, Halsey – normally underrated as a distinctive vocalist – emulates Goulding’s breathiness in these verses. In the chorus she sounds like herself again, but just barely recognizable. I like bratty, dramatic Halsey the most, and there’s little of that here except for the transitions between sections, where it sounds like she’s building to a shout then remembers the kind of song she’s on. Yet I don’t know what kind of song this is supposed to be – the title is “Be Kind,” but the song feels passive aggressive as much as it’s supportive. Calling it “Be Kind” feels like a last-second decision to please the executives that want happy music now more than anything else. Musically, this is just confused. I’m used to hearing synths side-chained to drums in contemporary pop, and while there’s some pumping going on with the synths, the way things fight for space in this mix just makes me wonder if the producers and engineers also went ‘eh, it’s fine, who cares, we’re in a pandemic’ when they heard this.
[5]

Katie Gill: Yep, this sure is a Marshmello song. Even worse, it’s a Marshmello song with absolutely banal lyrics, the sort of thing that feels like a first draft submitted five minutes before the essay’s deadline. Even WORSE, it’s a Marshmello song with the most boring production I’ve heard in a while. It’s not even bad: just boring. There is nothing new or notable here. Halsey does some fun things with her lower range, but it’s a trick we’ve seen before.
[2]

Will Adams: Marshmello’s lead billing here (or the fact that he’s credited at all) is hilarious given how anonymous this electro-chug is. Still, Halsey gives the hook more oomph than it deserves, which elevates this from “completely disposable” to “slight but enjoyable.”
[6]

Alfred Soto: How appropriate Marshmello gets his name above the credits. Mushy, devoid of nutritional value, and overrated as a treat, “Be Kind” does little but provide another vehicle for Halsey’s rue.
[5]

Alex Clifton: Much like an actual marshmallow: sweet while it’s going down, but doesn’t taste much of anything.
[4]

Happy 2 B?

[Video]
[3.50]

Leah Isobel: All sales and streams of this gloopy, negging doo-wop track benefit the First Responders Children’s Foundation, which is a lovely gesture that makes it feel unfair to criticize the song. Of course, a coherent response from the American government would obviate the need for such a gesture at all. This makes “Stuck With U” oddly fitting — that U might as well stand for U.S., or us. I just wish the apocalypse sounded better.
[2]

Katie Gill: Crack theory: this was a trashed song hastily recorded and released because it can vaguely tie into COVID-19. Some of the lyrics — especially Bieber’s — seem insensitive at best. Everything about the production feels slapdash or rushed. But the biggest factor I’ve got in this theory is how the song is just so bland. It’s a slow dance ballad that you know wanted to be “Like I’m Gonna Lose You” part two, except neither Bieber nor Grande sound sultry enough to move it past mediocre.
[2]

Nina Lea: I find this track utterly fascinating. “Stuck With U” nods to the strangeness of this time we’re living in, and yet it also simultaneously normalizes our new reality by sounding exactly like several other completely inoffensive, saccharine, retro-throwback pop songs we’ve heard before. So many of us right now may be wondering — or struggling to imagine — how this historic moment will be understood and remembered, and more than anything else I’ve heard so far, “Stuck With U” has made me acutely aware of how the popular myth-making machine grinds on, smoothing out the complicated present into a cultural memory even as we live mired in uncertainty. Of course two pop juggernauts immediately made a milquetoast ballad pandering to those staying at home, of course this song will be played in the background of quarantine engagement videos and subsequent weddings. “Stuck With U” knows that it is both an ode to the current moment and an inevitable relic. When I listen to “Stuck With U” from the confines of the studio apartment that I’m sharing with the new guy I’m dating, I see the future laid out like a city I’ve not yet been to but whose layout I know by heart: the slow return to a kind of normalcy; the way many things will have been irreparably changed; the eventual think pieces reminiscing, minimizing, glorifying, analyzing the pandemic; “Stuck With U” coming on the radio at 2 a.m. years later after these feelings have long faded, making me nostalgic for a “simpler time” that never really existed even at the moment of its creation.
[3]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: At times, quarantining in my childhood home with my whole family feels unbearably stifling: everyone is on each other’s toes for even the smallest, dumbest grievances. But, in a crooked way, this experience almost feels like stolen time, a secret blessing and privilege to hide at home before being fully engulfed in the adult world. Case in point: my sister and I have not been able to celebrate my mom’s birthday or Mother’s Day at home for the past five years, and this Mother’s Day, we spent an entire day doing nothing but baking a cake and watching the whole third Star Wars trilogy. When else in the world could I have had time to do that? It’s this recent reflection on my own privilege that has helped me start to appreciate the message behind “Stuck with U.” The song is an argument to make the most of the times, even despite all the chaos and pain in the world, and the picture of domestic bliss presented in the video is too wholesome to view through a cynical lens. 
[7]

Jackie Powell: The sentiment is admirable here. I appreciate the philanthropic attempt and am turned off by the pettiness of the Billboard chart debacle with 6ix9ine, but I’m not sure if this is a song that makes me “feel good.” Instead, I might want to waltz? Will teens who couldn’t go to prom actually be dancing to this? A new COVID wedding song, who knows? I guess what’s bizarre about this quarantine heart song is that it doesn’t mirror a lot of feelings associated with living through a global pandemic. There isn’t enough of a struggle. But maybe is that the point of this track’s radical acceptance of our current situation? This must be what happens when Scooter Braun is the first listed writer on this single. *Shrug* The best part of the heavily cameoed– “Imagine”-esque video was seeing Liz Gillies, because who doesn’t love Jade West or a faux-Cady Heron. But besides Gillies, the only redeemable quality about this track and video are singer/songwriter Blush’s backing vocals on each pre-chorus’s “oh, oh, oh, oh (ooh)” and the feathery outro. After many listens, this track isn’t one that will be stuck on my mind. I guess we are just stuck with it.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Grande sings with a natural empathy; she times the release of those voice cracks like a pro. But she’s selling horseshit. I don’t care how moony the idea of spending months cooped up with your beloved sounds — I know high schoolers tired of the quarantine who don’t reminding of what passed for fidelity in pop lyrics. And being stuck with Justin Bieber is like being stuck with the clap.
[2]

• Claire Biddles reviewed The 1975’s Notes on a Conditional Form (3/10) for The Line of Best Fit.
• The latest issue of Tone Glow, Joshua Minsoo Kim’s newsletter, highlighted 30 of its writers’ favorite songs of the year so far, including writeups from Kim, Ashley Bardhan, and Ryo Miyauchi.
• Julian Axelrod has started a series of mixes on Soundcloud called Finetunes, combining music, comedy, and weird internet ephemera: listen to “finetunes vol 1” here.
• Juana Giaimo wrote about eight new Latin emo bands for Remezcla.
• Joshua Minsoo Kim also published a Tone Glow interview with Finnish drummer and producer Sasu Ripatti.
• Kayla Beardslee shared an instrumental on Soundcloud.
• Jackie Powell profiled Sonia Citron for SLAM: Citron, who is the New York State Gatorade Player of the Year for women’s basketball, talked with Powell about her recent commitment to Notre Dame and the players she looks up to most in the WNBA.

Next week: James Arthur’s “Three Fridges Away”…

[Video][Website]
[5.33]

Juana Giaimo: I guess we’re all going to have to listen to hundreds of songs about being socially distanced, but I hope some of them are less corny than this. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Please submit emotionally moving Songs that evoke a sad, melancholy, and/or somber mood. Think of the kinds of Songs you might hear in a scene when someone is at a cemetery visiting their loved one’s grave, or what might play when the protagonist is in a desolate town that’s been heavily affected by the virus! LYRIC Tip: Lyrically, your Songs should have themes about hopelessness, isolation, loneliness, fear of the unknown, needing others, needing help, missing friends or loved ones, needing friends or loved ones, relying on others to get you through tough times, these crazy times we’re living in, the end of the world, about to lose a loved one, the loss of a loved one, etc. Depressed yet? That’s what your Songs should do to viewers — underscore the sadness in the scene!
[1]

Katie Gill: This is so fuckin’ hokey. Like, god bless Luke Combs’s heart, you can tell that he’s trying his best to do some sort of inspirational pick-you-up ballad, but this has more cheese than a Kraft Singles warehouse. This is like, baby’s first songwriting. These are lyrics that my high-school self who was in the fuckin’ poetry club like a big nerd would look at and go “ehhh, I don’t know, that’s a little too on the nose.” And that’s why I love it. So much modern radio-focused country music is generic, play-by-numbers and positively pandering that you rarely get anything good. This is technically so bad it’s good, but that still counts as good. And the best part about it? I had come up with this mental narrative about Combs self-quarantining and writing this by himself but then I Googled it and THERE WERE THREE PEOPLE WHO WROTE THIS SONG. Three people worked on this piece of Vermont cheddar and we somehow still ended up with “I miss my mom / I miss my dad”?! How the hell did that happen!
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: I wish its second verse weren’t quite so list-y, but I’m behind the sentiment 1000%. I love the chorus line “There will be light after dark/Some day when we’re not six feet apart,” the production is nicely tough, and Combs’ voice sounds great. Nothing for me to dislike here, really. And this feels like a grower, too.
[7]

Steacy Easton: The list making is a little lazy (Billy Bragg’s version of this trope works better), and the production could stand to be starker, but it’s a lovely song, and one whose sentimental hope is much needed right now. 
[6]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Now that quarantine music is starting to become its own genre, I’m trying to develop my own criteria about how to critically engage with it. Do you judge songs based on traditional, subjective measures (sound, innovation, idea and execution, etc) or does how this music exists in this particular moment in history matter? “Six Feet Apart” bores me sonically: it sounds like a simulacrum of every other hit on white male-dominated country radio. But I can’t help but give this song a [7] — as a documentation of this moment, it feels genuine and hopeful, the type of art that could really give hope to people going through a hard time. “I miss my mom, I miss my dad, I miss the road, I miss my band” is devastating in its simplicity and its sentiment, and Luke Combs paints an incredibly hopeful image of what life will look like after all this coronavirus stuff is behind us. Bonus: it doesn’t even feel gimmicky or cynical like any of the other celebrity gestures. I can’t imagine listening to this in a couple of years, but for the moment, it feels just right.  
[7]

It’s no surprise…

[Video][Website]
[5.88]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The majority of “In Your Eyes” is just another iteration of Abel Tesfaye’s tried-and-true Michael Jackson pastiche, but there are two specific moments that take this over the top for me. First, and most obviously, major points are deserved for the sax solo which closes out the track: the aural incarnation of sex, intoxication, and drama. And second, not to be overlooked, is the way the chorus builds so slowly and delicately into the post-chorus rush of adrenaline: “I’m blind! I’m blind!” I’m such a sucker for single cycles that cohesively world-build, and the way that moment reinforces the macabre glamour of “Blinding Lights” is nothing short of brilliant.
[8]

Tobi Tella: The restraint here is palpable, and even though his signature falsetto is obviously iconic, the chest voice does wonders in differentiating this and giving it weight. Add that sexy sax and it becomes clear that no matter how questionable, misogynistic, or plain sad the lyrics are, I’ll always be here for him serenading me.
[7]

Alex Clifton: You’ve got Max Martin’s melodic math, some great disco/synth beats, and a ripping sax solo at the end. Do you need anything else?
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: “Africa”-biting, expensive-sounding-soundsing, half-ass-saxed, barely-bothering-with-mournful yacht pop. I’d rather be on the Diamond Princess.
[2]

Pedro João Santos: It does boggle me how Max Martin gives Abel such a weak, liminal song during an era that’s touted as his strongest bid for mainstream ascendancy. For Martin, it’s a self-disservice to pop-by-numbers, which is his bread and butter, but sounds less like his pride and joy. “In Your Eyes” musters up all that’s expected from 80s-revivalist midtempo, which is more to do with the production hitting all the dopamine beats: it might be a ghost of a hook, embarrassingly scraggy, but the synth rush to go along, though canned, might be a catalyst for boppery. An exhibition of songwriting mastery this is not, more so a troubling decay next to “Blinding Lights”, and a missed opportunity to Make The World Go “Fucking Hell” when it’s already on your side. Pop stars without the willingness to pull the rug from audiences, 80s without the verve — this remake sucks.
[6]

Alfred Soto: So it’s not a Peter Gabriel cover? Doesn’t the new The 1975 single employ the same saxophonist? Have these dudes been listening to the same Glass Tiger comp? Grant Matt Healy this: he may have prolix ideas about bedding women, but they’re original.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Obviously musicians should have edges and feel no need to compromise their artistic impulses or devotion to expelling the depths of their psyche into audio, but the exception proves the rule. The Weeknd’s tones are dulcet here, as he gently allows his addressee to contain multitudes, and himself to be a conduit for a slick retro-futurism with which he is more at home than almost anyone.
[7]

Katie Gill: Hey gang, it’s The Weeknd continuing to do his 1980s-inspired shtick that he’s done for the past few months! Who’d’ve thought this would happen except literally everybody? This honestly feels like “Blinding Lights Redux”, which is probably why it got released as a single as half of America still hears “Blinding Lights” when they turn on their car radio. Frankly, this is inoffensive and fun enough that it too shall probably become a radio fixture. At least, I hope it does just so it can be another nail in the coffin of The Weeknd’s sadboy shtick. He’s much more fun when he’s having fun.
[6]

We have some notes…

[Video]
[6.43]Claire Biddles: One of my favourite 1975 tricks is the ability to pastiche very specific types of songs — usually from the tail end of a movement, or in a deeply unfashionable genre — and tease out their sense of fun and potential. For “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)”, The 1975 assume the role of a rock band who got big in the early to mid ’80s, and went from arenas to stadiums — only to falter with an ostensibly ‘experimental’ (read: indulgent) fourth album, and face relegation to clubs and theatres. After an extended break (maybe a divorce?) it’s 1991 and they are BACK! with some lightly outdated production and a saxophone solo applied to their usually rock stomp (yacht rock passed them by at the time, but they did always think the rolled-up jackets looked cool) plus the girl the singer is maybe dating roped in to sing a bit at the start. It could be tragic, but instead it’s miraculous — every handclap and backing vocal as light as air. Undeniable frothy pop, number 7 in the charts, not a fan favourite but beloved by everyone else. Anyway, good thing The 1975 aren’t going to make a misstep on their fourth album like this imaginary band!! What a great standalone single this is!!
[8]

Alfred Soto: With their ratio of boring to awesome singles about even, imagine my surprise to learn “If You’re Too Shy” grabbed me at once. As an example of pop song composition, it’s flawless: well-delineated verses, an actual bridge, and kick-in-the-heart chorus. The rhythm guitar fills and synth bass punch up Matt Healy’s absurd tale about twins, hotels, and calling those twins in the nude. Their most attractive single since “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME,” “If You’re Too Shy” would’ve earned a higher grade if the saxophonist didn’t learn his lines from a Richard Marx ballad and the intro didn’t faff about too long.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: “Ask” by The Smiths repurposed as a sophisti-pop song — those chords could be “Life in a Northern Town,” for god’s sake — and vastly improved by the lyric “maybe I would like you better if you took off your clothes,” because making the sub-text into text is a trick I can always get behind.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s “Looking For Linda” with the internet and guitars, and so it is of course The 1975 in one of their many guises. Here, they’re drawing inside the lines enough to pick up broad-based airplay, and while they undersell things with a more verbose than hooky chorus, the wordiness does at least lead to two catchphrases. It’s a rare band that get to dip their toes in and out of radio waters so freely, and hearing this gawky, covertly bleak ebullience highlights how fortunate it is that this one can.
[7]

Will Adams: A brief inquiry into managing sexual tension on Zoom calls. As usual, it’s not as deep as Matty Healy likely thinks — turns out stripping over video chat is awkward! — but the sparkly synthpop, recalling the best moments of I Like It When You Sleep…, almost redeem it. Docked a point for the original version’s intro, which unscrupulously casts FKA Twigs as the voice of the anonymous e-siren.
[6]

Oliver Maier: In an unprecedented twist, the 1975 have released a 80s indebted pop rock song where Matty Healy is doing some pondering. He is having cybersex with a girl, you see, because he is cool and does things like that, but also he feels weird about it, because of how much he respects women. There is a saxophone solo, which I guess is supposed to be cathartic — the music that plays in his head when he, uh, gives himself a try — but is mainly there so that people will go “wow! A saxophone solo!” and the mainstream discourse, presumably, will go “ouch!”. As a single, it seems to be proving a winning exception for other sceptics of the band, and I’d love to be able to acquiesce, because I like to have fun. I just can’t really summon more praise than “competent” and “sorta catchy”.
[5]

Alex Clifton: Takes far too long to get to the good stuff, and Matty Healy chews all of his words so I can hardly understand what he says without looking at the subtitles on the YouTube video. The shame is that when it finally gets going, it’s really catchy! That’s normally enough to save a song for me, but instead I’m irritated because this could’ve been something actually good. Can someone explain to me why this band is popular, please?
[3]

The supergroup, anticipated by somebody, of Travis Scott and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi; presumably not asked: Jill Scott, Scott Baio, and Scott Evil…

[Video]
[4.67]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I’ve never quite gotten Travis Scott’s appeal. His music consists of pretty average bangers, but teenage boys over-hype him as an innovative trap messiah. But on “THE SCOTTS,” I finally feel like I might be hearing what they’ve been hearing. He and Kid Cudi have constructed something so brooding and epic, I voluntarily engaged with Fortnite and actually enjoyed it. 
[7]

Tobi Tella: These two getting a massive hit off a Fortnite event is one of the most 2020 things to happen. It succeeds in having wide, broad appeal and feeling like an amalgamation of every other Travis Scott song in existence: fun, but empty.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: Fortnite tie-in aside, the message of this tune is loud and clear: “Hello, we are two people you know about, and we’ve made a new rap group!” The beat’s got a catchy nautical beep to it. Everything else is insubstantial clatter.
[4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The one point is for Mike Dean’s synth freakout outro, which is ’70s prog in its leanings. The rest feels like ’80s pop prog: a joyless mismatch of styles by guys looking for a hit that somehow feels both endless and truncated all at once.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: Kid Cudi is quarantine music. Either you feel that in your gut or you don’t. The Unnecessarily Capitalized Scotts are also quarantine music, in that the single is solipsistic as hell (naming a track after yourself is a tad premature, don’t you think?), a pseudo-event in both the Boorstin and the Zoom-ennui senses: ephemeral while present, sensationless when gone.
[5]

Katie Gill: As I listened to the mp3, I mused on how this would be a decent song to score a video game trailer. It doesn’t really feel like a song, more like a snippet to pad out or introduce a mixtape. Each 15 to 30 seconds is perfectly constructed to be played alone, without context — say, as a YouTube ad. There’s no climax or narrative to the sound, but the climax or narrative could be in a cutscene, or seeing Mr. Halo shoot a guy. When I watched the video, I saw that I was 100% right. Go team?
[5]