Not one reference to “When a Woman’s Fed Up”? Tssk…

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[5.42]

Mallory O’Donnell: When R.Kelly dresses up in genreface, he dresses up for real. For this particular outing he’s donned the pacing of Billy Paul, the timbre of Percy Sledge, the dramatic thrust of Tyrone Davis and the heartfelt sincerity of Eddie Murphy’s “Hymietown.”
[5]

Martin Skidmore: Something like a reaction to Percy Sledge’s most famous tune, though this is built on a simple backing track very like my favourite soul song, “Your Precious Love”. I generally like him best at his more bonkers moments, but this is extremely impressive, and it relies almost entirely on his performance, which is very well judged. He’s always had the voice, though I’ve not always loved the uses he puts it to. This time he is doing my favourite style, and doing it with what sounds like easy mastery.
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Jonathan Bogart: I’m not sure anyone thought that what pop needed in 2010 was a response song to Percy Sledge’s 1966 “When A Man Loves A Woman,” sung in a variety of early-soul voices with cheap bombast and the merest hint of Autotune, but that’s R. Kelly. Identifying needs no one has and then filling them with such confidence and brio that it’s impossible not to shout thank you! right back at him.
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Asher Steinberg: I have never enjoyed Kells’s attempts to play a more traditional crooner role, as Kells himself always seems to be missing from them; they’re a rare blot of impersonal, derivative work on the catalogue of an artist, who, whatever he is, is always very much himself. “When a Woman Loves” is no exception. The production’s an annoying procession of canned instrument-sounds, the song has no real detail or melody, and the hook is preposterous. When a woman loves she loves for real? They all do? Not that great songs haven’t been written about Platonic men and Platonic women, but: (a) in, for example, “When a Man Loves a Woman”, you really get the sense that the ‘Man’ is the singer himself and ‘a Woman’ is a particular woman the ‘Man’ is too hurt to talk directly about. Kind of the point of the song; (b) one does not at all get the sense that Kells believes this nonsense about the Universal Loving Woman; it’s more like, “time to make a wedding song! Let’s not be funny and misogynistic today!”
[3]

Al Shipley: R.’s gaudiest contemporary club bangers have enough classic soul buried in their DNA that laying out his oldest influences in such a baldfaced and unimaginative way is dull for him and pandering for the audience. But this might actually work if he just went all the way and hired a band instead of using the same chintzy MIDI orchestra from that K Michelle song we reviewed a while back.
[1]

Katie Lewis: Kells, you have money. Hire real musicians.
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Pete Baran: Less Percy Sledge, more Percy falling off the Sledge and plummeting downhill to end up with a nastily gashed bonce.
[2]

Zach Lyon: 1. “When a Woman Loves” sounds like it was produced by an eight year-old on a cheap keyboard from 1994. I have no idea how these sounds made it into an R. Kelly song, but my theory is that Kells has reached a new level of egotistical insanity that he wants his voice to be the only decent thing you can hear. 2. These lyrics are ridiculously stupid and say much more about him than the girl; R. Kelly does not sing about loving a woman, he sings about a woman loving him. 3. Aziz Ansari’s impression is so effective because you get the impression that there isn’t an ounce of fabrication to it. 4. I am physically incapable of giving an R. Kelly song a negative review.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Was gonna say Percy Sledge rofl’d in his grave (shockingly, the googled phrase “rofl’d in his grave” yields zilch; what does that say about a generation’s lack of wit?), but turns out Percy’s still alive. Anyway, this is obviously all mannerism — totally overwhelms whatever song (about his mom maybe?) might be here. But at least R. gets the mannerisms right, which is more than you can claim for 99% of his genre, “retro” or otherwise, since soul music was abandoned by R&B radio and relegated to middle-aged Southerners on back-of-the-bus labels three decades or more ago. Seriously, though — why hasn’t the depth of his sound (as opposed to the crassness of his sex talk) been more influential?
[7]

Anthony Easton: This is well constructed, misogynist bullshit, and is not nearly as vital as his outsiderish fuck anthems, but I still swallow every drop and beg for more.
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Alfred Soto: Had Raphael Saadiq performed this, I’d note how his love of R&B history acted as a restraint on the histrionics. But “restraint” and R. Kelly once fumbled with their clothes years ago, and they’ve avoided each other since. His performance, as affected as David Bowie singing “Time”, is designed to make a karaoke audience of a dozen applaud loudly.
[4]

John Seroff: I woulda thought we had another decade until R Kelly opted to tackle some genuine L7 crooning but damned if he hasn’t skipped dipping his toe in the gooey cookie dough adult contemporary shallows and instead taken the plunge, very much in character, into the deep end. Really, the Fauxtown stylings of “When a Woman Loves” aren’t exactly a surprise for Kelly to feature; his albums of late tend to feature a half-dozen, cover-the-bases trendrider one shots. The corny midi orchestra, the bombs-bursting-in-air ending, the vocal cartwheels, the utter savor Kelly lavishes on every syllable are all easily predicted; a truly rare bout of lyrical restraint is not. Finally, an R. Kelly song that my Jewish grandma will love! It’s like Christmas came early! I’ve got Kells’ present right here. It’s a cape. Think I’ll go drape it over him.
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