If a quickie means a half-dozen women all at once, we’ve been doing it all wrong…

[Video][Website]
[4.80]
Al Shipley: Miguel is barely recognizable here from the sensitive soul on his two previous midtempo hits; the first few times I heard this on the radio, I thought it was some ascendant one hit wonder looking to score the next “Birthday Sex.” I thought it was impressive then and still do now that I know who did it, mainly because he can’t help but inject a disarmingly forlorn little harmony into the “I don’t wanna be loved” refrain that keeps this from being just a vapid little sex song.
[7]
Alfred Soto: In his last single, the superior “Sure Thing,” he assured the ladies they could take a chance with him – and they still can! No bite marks, scratch marks, or leakies, he promises. But while the languid, gallumphing rhythm works, Miguel’s voice doesn’t ride it as well as I hoped. It’s possible he promotes his nice-guy bonafides so incessantly because a nice guy is all he is.
[5]
Jer Fairall: He gets points for honesty: not only does this graceless, arrhythmic track have the slurring incoherence of every drunken asshole who’s ever hit on you at a bar, but the sex sounds like its gonna be every bit as mediocre as he promises.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: Miguel’s so adamant against being loved that his track sounds like he’s slumping down metal stairs and his supposedly sexy chorus is so sheepishly off-key you half-expect him to follow it up with an apology. The most boast he can muster is the wrong-in-every-sense “I got a penny for your thoughts, if you know what I mean.” (Size? Denomination? The coin nobody wants to use?)
[3]
Brad Shoup: A seasick, undeveloping mess that only catches any kind of spark for the two seconds the backing vocalists step up. He asks for a quickie like a four-year-old orders cereal. If you told me Rivers Cuomo ghost-wrote this I’d just nod.
[2]
Zach Lyon: Built entirely on dissonance and juxtaposition: lyrics about quickies over a chorus lifted from a Marley song about domestic bliss, lyrics about quickies over Miguel sounding like he’ll fall asleep before it’s over, lyrics about quickies over Miguel straining to woo the girl with Portuguese and requests for her wish list (you don’t have time for that, Miguel, and probably nothing you say is going to turn her on enough to get past the constant reminder of “this’ll only take a minute”!). I don’t mind, and it sounds nice.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: In a pop landscape where feather-light reggae is the quickest route to nauseatingly insincere sincerity, this thick, churning dub is gratifyingly up-front about its intentions. “Miguel: The Anti-Bruno Mars” might not be enough, as a slogan, to make him a superstar, but it makes my ears perk up.
[8]
Pete Baran: Not sure what the optimum heat to love ratio for a quickie is, but I think the mercury should be rising. Perhaps it’s an unremarkable slow jam, but the pure simplicity and honesty of Miguel’s singing marks it out as more than just a less loving bit of lovers rock. And anyway he rhymes “quickie” with “hickie,” which has got to be in the top ten couplets this year.
[6]
Ian Mathers: No bite marks, no scratches, no hickies? Sounds boring. But the song sounds fabulous, the backing somehow simultaneously spare and hazy, modern and retro, sultry and controlled. I even like the timbre of Miguel’s voice; it’s a shame the lyrics are so repeatedly dumbass. It crimps “Quickie”‘s style, but the rest of the package is so complete that I find myself liking it anyway.
[7]
Michaela Drapes: “Call me your plumber”? That nasty! Miguel, darling, no matter how sexy you think a hot little quickie can be, women are not to be used like so many kleenexes and holes to be filled.
[2]
Leave a Reply