MSTRKRFT ft. JHN LGND – Heartbreaker
Hey, cross me over…
[Video][Website]
[5.31]
Anthony Miccio: MSTRKRFT nuking beats around a boisterous rapper = stoopid. MSTRKRFT nuking a tepid toss-off that goes “All my friends said you’d break my heart/ A heartbreaker right from the start” = stupid.
[4]
Alfred Soto: 808 and Heartbreaker.
[5]
Michaelangelo Matos: Don’t think I’ve heard John Legend sound quite so brooding (I don’t know his catalog well, so feel free to disabuse me in the comments). But he’s interesting mainly because he’s changing pace; on the record he’s probably the dullest aspect, and this is not a record with a lot going on.
[5]
Martin Skidmore: I’m not convinced that throbbing, tense electro beats really suit Legend, even with piano used in a big way, and he sounds a bit awkward and mechanical on this at times, following rhythms he isn’t comfortable with, especially when emphasising all three syllables of the title. The music’s pretty good – I’ve never been a huge fan, but it has drive and richness and intelligence.
[6]
Andrew Casillas: MSTRKRFT seems to know nothing about contemporary R&B, and thus how to appropriately utilize John Legend. Luckily, John Legend is always consistent-as-clockwork, and serves as a handy guide for what’s actually a pretty decent tune.
[7]
John M. Cunningham: It’s nice to hear a MSTRKRFT song that doesn’t take place in a discotheque populated only by lovelorn robots, but John Legend, who soared on his own four-to-the-floor dance single (last year’s “Green Light”), comes off as rather milquetoast here. Points mostly for that stately, emphatic piano that runs throughout.
[6]
John Seroff: I’m aware that this sort of post-shoegaze upbeat electronic simplicity is in vogue at the moment, but there’s an important distinction between being stripped down and being lazy. No matter how many effects and tricks and throwaway, three-note John Legend intonations you throw on top of a hook with the originality and complexity of Frere Jacques, this just sounds lazy to me. The lyrics are puerile, the sentiment is plastic and the beat is recycled. It’s a Similac love song and while it’s innocuous and brief enough not to be offensive, it is also unworthy of mention by the same note. Life’s too short for pop songs with this little zip; you could dance to it, but why?
[4]
Hillary Brown: I think I prefer this to anything John Legend’s done on his own. It has energy and a sharp beat that provides a great fast-walking pace, and while it isn’t hugely memorable, it’ll crop up later from your unconscious, which digs it.
[7]
Matt Cibula: In a couple of weeks, I have my first dentist appointment in a few years. I expect that this song will be playing in the waiting room, and that the tooth-cleaning thing will sound kind of like the synth-thing that comes in at about 2:20. Going to the dentist is, unlike this song, kind of necessary.
[4]
Ian Mathers: I’m not a fan of either act on their own, but it turns out that Legend’s competent balladry and MSTRKRFT’s Justice-aping actually go fairly well together. Legend benefits from having a fairly strict structure he has to work within, and MSTRKRFT benefit from having a human on one of their songs.
[7]
Mallory O’Donnell: This is a pleasant, even perhaps really good song that arrives somewhere between the second and last thirds of an album that you like; a song which, one perceptive or slightly melancholy day, becomes your new favorite. That does not in any way make it a single, sadly.
[6]
Chuck Eddy: Meh enough to almost make me miss Death From Above 1979, if only because they inspired a really good CSS song once.
[3]
Additional Scores
Andrew Brennan: [8]
Anthony Easton: [5]
Doug Robertson: [5]
Keane Tzong: [3]