The Singles Jukebox

What the bleep?

[Video]
[4.14]

John Seroff: Dirtbag Harry Potter and Ross from Friends chase Charlie Puth money with a date rape anthem sponsored by Solo Cup. It’s undeniably catchy but so is the flu.
[3]

Hannah Jocelyn: I was looking through Mediabase charts to find what songs we hadn’t covered yet when I came across this one, gathering plays on the radio but appearing virtually nowhere else other than a couple of stray Billboard charts. Apparently, they are a former Vine duo who switched to making music, which has quite the mixed track record. There are some really interesting things going on with the beat, and “don’t make me beeEEEEEgggg” is a bizarre but kind of captivating hook. Then there are the bleeps, which are in the original version of the song (you know this ain’t the cleaaaannn version), but they aren’t even tuned to the key of the rest of the track. If it did become a hit, I wouldn’t mind hearing it everywhere, but wow I hope they just tune that bleep slightly.
[6]

Alex Clifton: I’m annoyed by the self-censoring of the “don’t fuck me up” lyric. Would have been overkill to keep that in and repeated so many times, but somehow it’s weirder that it’s censored — like they couldn’t bring themselves to make that leap. Should have had a different line overall! I could not pick these guys out of a crowd, but this was better than I anticipated.
[5]

Claire Biddles: There’s some interesting beats-and-synth moments in the sparser parts of the song — and the bizarre anachronistic boyband drop towards the end, which is kind of the best bit — but “Beg” becomes generic when it fills out. There’s something juvenile about including “fuck” in the chorus not once but twice in a radio hit, just so it can be beeped out, but I guess these generic internet boys have to stand out somehow. 
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: Boys in pop are still trying to mine something new from Purpose, and Jack & Jack twist Bieber’s script to sing about actually finding joy in not getting what they want. While knowing how bitter these kinds of guys will be once the game starts to turn not in their favor, the candy beat passes “Beg” along for now.
[6]

William John: Their act of repeating desperate phrases in the chorus should be suggestive of ardent desire, one that’s been subject to cruel, habitual trampling. But Jack & Jack instead opt to flatline into tedium, and the production parked behind them is similarly listless.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Impressive falsetto, decent aqueous effects, insistent pleading.
[2]