(Brian is bring-your-own-angst.)

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[4.69]

Alex Ostroff: Brian McKnight was dispensing beautifully sung cornballs fourteen years ago and apparently still is. His vocals remain pristine, so I’m not sure if “Back at One” is genuinely more emotionally affecting than this or if it’s simply that I haven’t been forced to listen to “4th of July” a couple thousand times on the radio and during countless middle school slow dances. Either way, the electro-squelches are a nice update to the formula, and he brings just enough oomph to the bridge to make me pause and ponder if I’m underrating this. Not nearly enough to convince me, sadly.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: His voice and his harmonies retain traces of the jazz-song influence that was still haunting R&B in the early ’90s but had vanished from the charts by 2000. Someone involved with this track has heard “Climax,” but McKnight’s old-fashioned phrasing and unabashed sentimentalism sit uncomfortably on the bass squelches.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: This would have been a nice slow jam in 1999, before anyone could add dubstep.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Brian McKnight perfected post-Vandross softcore emoting over semi-electronic beats, and while his songwriting often curdles into the maudlin he’s a good singer, even when in the chorus he lets the backing vocalists take over while he goes wordless like Ne-Yo. I guess neither he nor Vanessa Williams will ever surpass “Love Is.”
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Oh right, we’re not all going to pretend “Let Me Show You How Your Pussy Works” gave this babyface crooner a new lease of life, then? The melodies are everything with McKnight, and the melodies on “4th of July” are baseless, bodyless, adding to the song’s corniness rather than making it more palatable. Another thing: “Let Me Show You…” didn’t need the studio gloss smothered over “4th of July” to cross over, only the digital lo-fi sound of flipcam microphones and YouTube uploads, and neither does “4th of July”. The sheen of the lightly pulsing beat attempts to push the song out of adult contempo and into the wider pop conversation without offending anybody, and at this point in McKnight’s career he needs to start making those type of moves. He should hook up with N.O.R.E. or something.
[4]

Josh Langhoff: A song about excitement that bespeaks only comfy familiarity. With his seamless production and adroit melodic leaps, he could be singing to his craft, his career, or his body of work.
[5]

John Seroff: The bassline says late-era Tevon Campbell, the percussion and keys are One Direction, the guitar says Tyler Perry original soundtrack, around track 11. Couldn’t find the fireworks anywhere.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Less an act of seduction and more of a stream of barely contained cliches.
[3]

Will Adams: These fucking lyrics! Her kiss is like Christmas, but she makes him feel like the 4th of July, and also every night is like New Year’s Eve. The tepid production can’t save it.
[3]

Iain Mew: I don’t think I could get on with either McKnight’s earnest declarations of happiness or the robot squelch beat on their own, but each softens the other just enough to make it work. Neat trick!
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: A sweet song made better by the subtle chorus.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Somewhat disappointingly, a cover of neither X’s very good song of the same name nor Aimee Mann’s great one, though McKnight’s original is tonally far more in keeping with the former’s celebratory/romantic take, kissing likened to fireworks and all that, than with the latter’s rueful utilization of the calendar as a means of marking personal disappointments and little else. A shame, as it would be interesting to hear a soul singer of McKnight’s ease and authority lend grace to a lyric as bitterly melancholic as “when they light up our town I just think, what a waste of gunpowder and sky.” McKnight’s own lyric belabours the titular conceit a bit too much, running through a series of holidays in such a way that might be best avoided post-“It’s Thanksgiving,” but as an expression of the sense of comfort and tradition that (hopefully) accompanies a years-long relationship, it’s sweet and heartfelt. 
[6]

Brad Shoup: More fire, less work.
[3]