The Singles Jukebox

AIIIEEEE!!!…

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[4.09]

Michaelangelo Matos: First we got Black Eyed Peas sounding like bad superclub trance. Now things go into reverse.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: In the context of a dance number, I enjoy Tinie’s silly rhymes. This thumps along on big elctro-synth chords, and as with their last one, it depends if you like them or find them stridently overbearing. Either seems a reasonable enough reaction – I lean mildly towards the former.
[6]

Asher Steinberg: The parts when Tinie isn’t rapping are okay. The parts when he is rapping are not. Perhaps Tinie has done good work elsewhere, but on here, he sounds more like the non-rapper “rappers” on “Like a G6”. There’s a great emphasis on baby talk, the alphabet, obscenely bad lyrics that recall the worst of mid-2000s NY mixtape rap (“surrounded by some bunnies, and it ain’t fuckin Easter”), obnoxious, aren’t-I-so-cool emphases on certain words (“bunnies”), and a general tendency to sound like Ke$ha, if Ke$ha were an English male rapper. I also don’t see how the epic rave breakdown ties into the prosaic getting-ass-in-two-continents lyrics.
[3]

Jer Fairall: My immediate impression of this was that the whole rhyming-acronyms lyrical conceit was too stupid to sustain an entire song. Still, imagine my surprise when, halfway in, it turns out that these guys appeared to be in agreement.
[4]

Kat Stevens: His splurge of acronyms is slower and even more lazily delivered than MIA’s similar list in “XR2”, but Tinie Tempah makes up for it with one killer line: “Surrounded by some bunnies and it ain’t FUCKING Easter“. I don’t know any other British rapper than can say ‘fucking’ as well as Tinie can. Two syllables to make you jump off the sofa for a second — before you remember how dull the eurohouse backing is and slump back down again.
[5]

Iain Mew: Swedish House Mafia once again excel by taking familiar pop trance sounds and cranking them up to sound more massive, more immediate. They also play with an extra synthdrum which initially had me wondering if I’d accidently left another song’s video playing in the background but ensures that proceedings never get too obvious. Tinie Tempah’s gawky acronym-filled rap eventually stumbles a little, but his appearance is well worth it for “She stays up all hours watching QVC” alone.
[8]

David Katz: I really don’t want this score to reflect on my pop-taste. Theoretically, it’s a great idea. I’m a sucker for audacious novelty and mutant genre-hybrids. “Take That” is one of my favourite singles of the year. Eurodance is maybe the last great genre to be vitually ignored by “serious” critics. But Tempah sounds like a pool aerobics instructor at a four-star resort and I could’ve engineered a more forceful backbeat with my palm and kneecap.
[2]

John Seroff: Even Pitbull had the common sense to avoid “Miami 2 Ibiza”. It’s a big tacky ball of fake energy, thoroughly garnished with every shitty trend inflicted on pop music over the past five years. I imagine the elevator to hell plays this all the way down.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: She pops a Motrin and she pops an aspirin / she takes an Advil and acetaminophen / she cuts the sound (no brand) but it’s still happening / this endless bosh has done her fucking eardrums in.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Like 90 minutes of foreplay and no orgasm; sometimes it can be fun, but this track is not nearly that handsome.
[3]

Zach Lyon: OK.
[6]