The Singles Jukebox

An equally hard world to adjust to, where Kendrick scores in the [4]s and [5]s…

[Video]
[4.50]Micha Cavaseno: Travis Scott’s albums are arguably the most intriguing trip-hop compilations of the current decade. It’s a simple formula: as long as this laconic Kid Cudi impersonator is on the record somewhere, Mike Dean gets to immaculately deconstruct all the tropes of modern rap and turn redundant records into toxic stews. On “Goosebumps” there’s a lot of autotuned mush and rotting guitar loops with sea-sick synths degrading like cheap analog film until Kendrick Lamar shows up and manages to sound like the most boring part of the record.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The production’s the star: keyboards and sonar effects flicker, disappear, return, like a Maxwell home tape from 1988 that survived several cars and Florida sunlight. Still coming off as a Kid Cudi clone, Travis Scott doesn’t rap anything worth the trouble. As for Kendrick, he not only presses the line but presses his luck.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: The beat sounds like a cross between peak-era gangsta and current-era trap; it doesn’t do much for me, but I do like the way the track occasionally seems to be slowed down like a record slipping in and out of phase. But neither Scott nor Lamar — two of the most overrated rappers of the moment — have much to say.
[3]

Anjy Ou: “Yeah we gon’ do some things you can’t relate / yeah cos we from a place, a place you cannot stay / Oh you can’t go, oh I don’t know”. I love this line because suggests the scary idea of placelessness and unbelonging, and at the same time, the empowering idea that you can shut people out and create your own space. A high point in a track that’s mostly dull and formulaic.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: I love the reversed, pitch-bended guitar loops so much that it’s disappointing when the trap beat makes its inevitable entrance, overcrowding the song. That said, I don’t mind Travis Scott here at all, aside from the irritatingly off-key gun adlibs at around 1:41 — interpreted as a love song as opposed to a drug song, his verse is actually kind of sweet, even when the second half goes a bit darker. Kendrick’s verse is fun as well, incorporating his flow from “LOVE.”, though his usual overdubs and voice changing further congest the track.
[6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I did a double take when I saw Travis Scott’s Jimmy Kimmel performance earlier this year. The visuals were great and all, but the added synths and ecstatic screaming transformed “Goosebumps” into the endearing confessional it wanted to be. The studio version is underwhelming in comparison; it’s the sound of a love song calculated inside one’s head without the heart to match, where one imagines a low-energy delivery of the chorus in combination with a “hypnotizing” beat will do anything but make the song feel more lethargic. Kendrick comes in and provides some lift, but it mutates the whole thing into a recycled Untitled Unmastered cut, removing any chance of “Goosebumps” feeling romantic.
[5]