The Singles Jukebox

Not-so-super troopers…

[Video][Website]
[3.88]

Michaelangelo Matos: What do you mean rap didn’t get saved by dudes who boast about riding around listening to Nickelback?
[4]

Spencer Ackerman: Argh! Another subpar Slaughterhouse track. How in the world can four obviously gifted, super-lyrical MCs — Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, Crooked I & Royce the 5’9 — consistently form less than the sum of their parts? They’re like a sun-melted Voltron that’s fused together and doesn’t work right.
[4]

Chris Boeckmann: I bet a generic flashy NBC Vegas-themed show could use this for the opening credits, but that certainly doesn’t justify its existence.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: Generally it’s a bunch of good rappers having fun over a punchy hardcore rap backing, albeit with unwelcome Lenny Kravitz guitar, mostly lusting after various pop stars. Fun.
[7]

Rodney J. Greene: I admit that I’ve avoided Slaughterhouse in spite of some goodwill toward a couple of its members, just because they seem to attract the wrong type of rap nerd: underground posturers who praise highly conceptual lyrics at the expense of, well, anything else. I expected this to be bad, and it is. But not at all in the ways I expected. The rhymes never get more involved than low level riffing on the names of rockers and pop starlets, as if the Shop Boyz really thought they were clever. Musically, this is aimed right at the airwaves, with a mass appeal beat and a female-sung hook that nags more than it entices, but there’s no indication that anyone involved has listened to urban radio in the past five years.
[4]

Martin Kavka: My appreciation for clever wordplay here — e.g. Crooked I’s “something in my denim need a kiss; call it Gene Simmons” and most of the interaction between Joe Budden and Joell Ortiz in the last verse — clashes with my disgust at the song’s portrayal of women as mere pretexts for said wordplay (and orgasms). The disgust wins. Still, if there were less artistry on display here, this would be a solid 0.
[3]

Pete Baran: So there I was, hobo humping with my slo-bo babe and suddenly this Slaughterhouse track came on the jukebox. And she said to me: “You know, I really like the singer in this band”, so I explained to her how they were a hip-hop supergroup (at which point she raised an eyebrow at me, at which point I had to admit that pissing off Eminem, Jay-Z and/or Dre doesn’t quite give you supergroup status). She then got annoyed that the voice she liked singing the chorus wasn’t really a member of the band, and that the name Slaughterhouse really made them sound like a second rate metal band from 1986. I had to admit that her point had merit, and she went on to explain that French rap is just like Pernod: only good when you are in France. She really should have this gig.
[4]

John Seroff: A tainted sloppy joe of thrown together odds and ends that likes to show off an unimpressive familiarity with cultural touchstones and late era Eminem-style punchlines. “How ironic is it/that I’m ridin’ round listenin’ to Nickelback”? Well Royce, based on the strength of “The One”, both your crews make formulaic, self-satisfied, unlistenable cock rock. So not very.
[2]