The Singles Jukebox

Brought to you by Weezy and Demand Media.

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[3.55]

Alfred Soto: In which Wayne shows a stripper his heart of gold and non-existent melodic sense. If it were a better performance it’d be far more condescending.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Oh, fuck off already with your savior-john fantasy and your lechery disguised as concern. There’s only one person who’s qualified to state whether this woman knows how to love, and a) it sure as fuck isn’t Lil Wayne, and b) whoever is the unlucky subject of this song deserves a national apology for being subjected to this infantilizing public shame-along and forced pity. He can’t even sing, I don’t know who’s playing the guitar, and this sub-“I’m in Luv with a Stripper” shit is going to soundtrack so much emotional mansplaining that I am literally about to throw up.
[0]

Mallory O’Donnell: Wow. This totally doesn’t wash away the stain of his usual sexist, bullshit claptrap that he phones in when he guests on every track ever made. If you ever thought this asshole was worth something, please hand in your game card now. This is absolute garbage, and his whole career is YOUR GODDAMN FAULT.
[0]

Jonathan Bradley: Think back to 2005, when Weezy jumped on Robin Thicke’s white soul burner “Shooter.” Then, he bounced off the non-standard instrumentation to create a richly layered, unconventional and unexpected work. The damp R&B of “How to Love” is the exact opposite: Wayne robbed of personality and charisma, his lyrics vacant, his presence perfunctory. Infected with even more Jason Mraz swag than the most recent Bruno Mars single, the sensitive bro guitar backing and tepid romanticism is begging for nothing less than John Belushi to take command of the proceedings.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: The simple guitar/beat combo is the perfect basis for something hypnotic or spare or thoughtful or anything other than Lil Wayne lazily drawling complete nonsense over the top of it. “Moments that didn’t last forever”? Really? Get a dictionary, please, that’s pretty much what moments don’t do. Also write some more song so you’re not repeating your clunkers endlessly. Enterprising rappers should pinch the backing and do something coherent over it.
[3]

Josh Love: It’s practically unheard of for a rapper as clever as Wayne to sacrifice his articulateness in the service of the feeling of a song. If Drake had done “How to Love” there’d have been eight terrible puns, and he would’ve figured out some way to make the whole thing about himself. But when Weezy slips into a higher register about halfway through, it’s sheer bliss. The track gives off a strong whiff of the coffeeshop, but Wayne easily retains enough of his spacy, playful autotuned charm that it’s far less a pander than an exhilarating crossover.
[8]

Michelle Myers: Nobody autotunes like Wayne. It’s like his voice is so resistant to staying on pitch that it can only bubble and gurgle around its computerized melody, floating about some artificial facsimile of acoustic guitars. It’s a sensitive guitar ballad ran through a food processing plant. In a good way, of course.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: For a long time I’ve beeing imagining a popstar mythography analogous to superhero universes; in these daydreams Lil Wayne occupies a space that a Steve Ditko character like Spider-Man does: stringy and jokey, goofy and slightly creepy, apparently second-string comic relief but unexpectedly powerful and central when the storytelling conventions demand it. And here the storytelling conventions have done just that: this is Wayne’s equivalent of a Very Special Issue, one in which the mask drops and we’re left with not the jokester or the four-color (anti)hero or even the multiple-identity crises which have become rote at this point, but just a guy. Looking at a girl. And trying to bridge the space between them. The message-board fanboys are unanimous in their disgust: where’s the fight scene? the quips? the post-adolescent rage and angst? this is supposed to be the Spectacular Weezy-Man, not the Spectacular Some Woman He Met Somewhere. She’s not even going to be in the next issue, and I’m supposed to give a shit? But the economy of the art and dialogue are proof against all their disgruntled bitching; it won’t set the sales charts on fire or even win any awards, but the people who identify with its fumblingly sincere portrait of female pain and isolation thanks to male aggression and entitlement (present company included) will cherish it long after the next crossover bonanza in the next issue, don’t miss it true believers, has faded from memory. Something like that, anyway. I haven’t listened to it enough times.
[8]

Zach Lyon: Oh lord, is he really trying to evolve from Rebirth? That’s the career strain he wants to follow? It’s the same deal, where the song is completely overrun by its own concept so instead of going anywhere it just repeats the same boring bullshit over and over. And Weezy just sits back and goes, “Look what I’m doing! I’m making my 311 song!” never realizing that no one actually likes 311. Or Velvet Revolver, for that matter.
[3]

Doug Robertson: Dull, uninvolving and with all the emotional fulfilment of a tube of primula, Lil Wayne might as well be singing this to a cup. And not even his favourite cup.
[2]

Al Shipley: It’s more tolerable than it has a right to be, mainly by virtue of being threadbare instead of over the top, but Wayne’s attempts at melodic songforms are still an insult to every singer he’s ever shared a track with. If he didn’t get this crap out of his system with Rebirth, then we might as well just change Tha Carter IV‘s title to Afterbirth.
[2]