Since when do you have to pick between men and shoes?

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[6.00]
Zach Lyon: 1. This is the height of adorableness. 2. SO FUCKING ADORABLE. 3. Um, that bass. Especially when the drums and everything drop out at the beginning of the second verse; so perfect. 4. The whole beat. I actually thought this was a mid-90s “classic” tune the first few times I heard it on the radio. 5. Enjambment! In a way, you could parse it “Thought you/were just/anoth/er Ro/meo” — it keeps the lyrics fresh and keeps you on your toes so you’re never quite sure where it’s going. “I sleep alone ’cause there’s no room in my bed/for any other lover/with no gun to my head/your kisses hold me hostage…” 6. And the way she keeps jerking you around anyway in the verses! There are a lot of co-writers credited, but she’s her main songwriter and a good one. She opens verse two with “I came before this digital ocean/where folks only move in digital/motion but you’re so classic I want you more than my Adidas…” which is simultaneously WTF and perfect in every way. Providing zonkiness and quickly tying it into your overall thesis = I need to hear more from her. 7. I feel like the chorus speaks for itself? SHOES. I understand this, now, even if she’s only apparently talking about sneakers and not boots or heels. 8. Cole’s verse isn’t too noticeable, and I sort of wish he flipped the conceit around and made it about male sneaker obsession but whatever. 9. After his verse, when he joins Elle on “I only wanna give it to you,” SO adorable. 10. The song generally has this “Let’s put on a song!” tone, like everyone involved just gathered in the studio for this happy labor of love and did their part. Elle and Cole were school friends who always wanted to do a track together, and this sounds like it. It took a few listens, but I can’t listen to this song once without listening to it at least five more times afterward.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: This is the sort of beat I’d have lost my shit over a decade ago, no matter how many tiers Elle has left to go as a vocalist. I’d have put up with the J. Cole analogue back then too.
[7]
Alfred Soto: With a studio album to promote and Metacritic scores to tabulate, Drake has no more time for vestigial appearances on other people’s tracks. J. Cole is in a similar predicament, but he’s an up and comer. Varner only transcends innocuousness in the verses; J. Cole hopes for frisson but provides stillborn bragging. Do two dullards make a right?
[4]
Brad Shoup: I thought she was singing in iambic pentameter for a minute. Varner’s vocal is all over the place, digging for huskiness, straining for thrall. The bass booms out from another world, a more professional world where paramours aren’t compared to shoes with a straight face and rappers would never consider fronting with the line “It’s a cold world/No Snuggie.” Comparisons to “You’re All I Need to Get By,” explicit or implicit, are merely wishful.
[2]
Jonathan Bogart: J. Cole continues his me-satisfying retro streak (we’ll ignore “Party” for the sake of all involved), but the song really belongs to the satisfyingly skronky Ms. Varner, whose souljazz vocals do a lot to add flavor to an otherwise nice-but-so-what bump-and-grind. Maybe the eye-peeling color of the video is overinfluencing me here, but I don’t much care; even the memory of that Keith Haring shirt is enough to set me humming.
[7]
Michelle Myers: Finally! I’ve been waiting for the day when I, too, would get to see the pop-culture of my childhood revived before me. With a beat worthy of Sean “Puffy” Combs and the elegant verse-verse-rap structure of any classic R&B/rap collaboration, this is painfully mid-’90s. I’m not complaining.
[7]
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