The Singles Jukebox

Pissed panda is pissed…

[MySpace][Video]
[6.50]

Jordan Sargent: “Wasted” shows off one of Gucci’s most powerful weapons, and that’s his ability to write indelible, appealing hooks that are wordy and unique but never clunky. The chorus here has a line— “Party, party, party/let’s all get wasted”— that’s just begging to be looped by club DJs (and this has certainly played a major part in it becoming a hit), but it serves as a payoff to a hook that is, in totality, memorable in its density. Gucci’s verses are tangled and slurred, but even though they slip and slide all over producer Fatboi’s grinding synths, there is still some of the compact wordplay that has defined Gucci’s renaissance: “285 Eastside, me and Plies wasted/Racin’, seven big booty broads chasin’/Spring break, 50,000 white girls shakin’”. Mostly, though, the song is about all the other sloppy drunks in the club and the backyard, be it your grandmother, your uncle or a backstage gold digger. It’s his most widescreen and encompassing song, and so far it’s also his most successful. While everyone was waiting for a “Lollipop”, he went and wrote his “In Da Club”.
[9]

Alex Ostroff: Belatedly aboard the Gucci Trane, and glad to be here. Dude knows his way around a hook that can bludgeon its way into your brane. WAKE UP IN THE MORNING. 10 OCLOCK DRINKING. PARTY PARTY PARTY LETS ALL GET WASTED. I’M SO WASTED. SHE’S SO WASTED. TELL THE BARTENDER SEND ME 20 MORE CASES. Yes, Jordan, I know, immaculately constructed verses, etc., and this is certainly true (Gucci not racist – all his diamonds caucasian). But more importantly, in a world of post-808s nervous breakdown rap, and crack-dealing post-recession-rap, Gucci is the only rapper I’ve heard recently who sounds like he’s having any fun.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Aware of his reputation for a silver tongue, I sat back and let him work his spell. Turns out he’s wasted on his ability to deliver a refrain and little else.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Life is too short to spend it thinking about Plies, but Gucci’s got a little something going for him. His delivery is typified by a forceful delicacy — it’s the closest thing he has to personality — and he pronounces his words with a bit too much care considering their flimsiness. That works in his favor when he ends a verse with a quietly triumphant “All my diamonds Caucasian!” or when he sets a scene with blunt efficiency: “No shirt — fuck it”, or “I’m so wasted/She’s so wasted.” These moments are too rare, however, and “Wasted” is a limp attempt at trend-igniting, its repetition numbing rather than engrossing.
[5]

Rodney J. Greene: While I realize that taking a novel word and building an entire song around it is a good piece of what he does, the titular adjective isn’t quite strong enough to hold up to Gucci’s heavy leaning. Another inhibiting factor is that the slurry tones of these two particular rappers evoke drunken revelry well, but the sonics are a bit too Ice Cream Castles in the Sky to mesh. No matter, the duo get off at least one completely hilarious couplet each, and the production’s shortcomings are more thematic than aesthetic.
[7]

Al Shipley: I kinda feel bad for Gucci that months of mounting mixtape hype have finally resulted in a mainstream solo hit on which he gets handily upstaged by 12 bars from a lesser talent like Plies. At the same time, he probably needed someone who pretty much sounds drunk to make the song a true anthem of debauchery.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: Completely typical party-like-a-rock-star stuff, but I’m curious: are they poking light fun at the term “wasted” as a white-boy thing? Something gave me that impression first two times I played it, but a third has made me wonder.
[5]

Matt Cibula: We go round and round and round again because we are high as a mofo and the room is spinning all around our heads and did you ever think that maybe it’s not that you are chemically altered but that you are just correctly perceiving the ACTUAL ROTATION OF THE EARTH WHOA.
[7]

Additional Scores

Pete Baran: [6]
Martin Skidmore: [7]