The Singles Jukebox

DISCUSSION QUESTION: But, like, how often have they actually done it?

[Video][Website]
[5.25]

Ramzi Awn: Jhené Aiko has already proven herself to be the queen of “souled out,” but there’s another side to her. Her 2016 collaboration with Big Sean, TWENTY88, promptly dispelled any notion that her soul couldn’t match Tinashe’s heat, with vocals way too sexy for work but sung with her signature softness. “Maniac” seamlessly threads three and a half minutes of song together with pure sex, LA chill and innovation. Behind every word is a multitude of experience — the pain and the joy — and an arabesque ability to just keep on singing.
[10]

Alfred Soto: “Insomniac.”
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Decent production — I like the faux-marimba. But the lyrics, which can be summed up as “I wanna fuck you,” are garbage. 
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: “Maniac” is basically the disorienting sensation of Aiko using her usual smoked-out spacious rambling quality to express how much of a perv she is again. Which is fine, great, superb for her to enjoy herself and to have more than a few listeners (yours truly included) choke on their drinks while hearing her go to town with her list of lewd moments. But the beat is boring, and once you get past the initial shock, there’s little to come back to. And now I’m imagining that Aiko would probably make a joke about using the word “come” in a review.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Jhené Aiko tiptoeing toward the grand lineage of X-rated rap was realistically her most logical follow-up to “Post to Be.” Considering Aiko’s more usual style — spacey, glassy, not particularly maniacal — she takes to this surprisingly well, though for all “Maniac”‘s specificity nothing here is as explicit as “groceries,” let alone the classics.
[5]

Iain Mew: Are the lyrics a play for the Suicide Squad soundtrack crowd? Either way, wrapping “you just made love to a maniac” in such a tender embrace of a song is more chilling than most alternatives.
[6]

Mark Sinker: The music is glorious, layered, sensuous, sculpted, kissed, caressed… and fairly bogus, like a really REALLY expensive softcore coffee-table book about the best possible sex in the fanciest relationship. If you couldn’t hear the words you’d maybe think it was about dreamily gazing out of the window watching pretty people walk by, and idly wondering about the amazing life you’d have with this one or that one — a life that’s all images from adverts, because you’re idly dreaming and that’s OK when you’re dreaming. Actually, it’s not hard to pretend it IS about that, and it makes the song better, so go ahead.  
[6]

David Sheffieck: As a song this barely coheres; as a goof, it’s kinda endearing. And I know there’s gotta be goth kids (or today’s equivalent) who would love to tell someone “you just made love to a maniac”, and I can’t begrudge them the rationale this song gives. Tell them, kids, but resist the temptation to tell them that the real maniacs are the ones who say they’re normal. This song suggests Aiko would, but there she’s gone too far.
[5]