The Singles Jukebox

The brains behind our highest scoring song in 2011 return with what is not a Nicki Minaj cover…

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[6.62]

Josh Langhoff: In this episode of Last Train to Paris, the role of Diddy’s Libido will be portrayed by Trey Songz, who makes better love faces. Diddy will be over in the corner, staying on his grind and barely acknowledging his longings except to lavish them with Polow’s magisterial production number.
[7]

Michaela Drapes: A sprawling, glorious fugue of freakitude, practically operatic or something! Rick Ross is Falstaff in a hot suit with a cigar, Trey Songz his filthy, dutiful Prince Hal. In a rare pop appearance of equal opportunity nastiness, Dawn Richard and Kalenna Harper ratchet up the dirty quotient considerably — everyone gets their turn, so to speak. The only problem is when Diddy shows up, all mopey with his wounded ego and unbearable fronting, he totally brings the party down. I’m not terribly sympathetic to his (brief) part of the story; let’s get back to the serious business of this track, shall we?
[7]

Al Shipley: “Ass On The Floor” partisans may sneer, but there’s a reason this is Last Train To Paris‘s late-breaking urban radio hit, and it’s not just that Trey is more popular than Swizz Beatz. Perhaps no song gains more from being removed from the context of the album, where it seems relatively tame. On the radio it feels bold and endlessly hooky.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: “Your Love” didn’t really stand out from the pack when listening to Last Train to Paris, but on an album that’s uniformly excellent, that isn’t necessarily a terrible thing. Hearing it on its own, it proves to be surprisingly filled with all sorts of interesting details that elevate its standing in my mind. The spareness of the opening verse, supported by the uneven clatter of the snare and brief snatches of harmony, is surprisingly effective, as are the M.I.A.-esque yodels in the background of the pre-chorus. By the time the chorus explodes in multi-part harmony, it feels so grandiose that I barely notice that the spareness of the instrumentation hasn’t actually changed. Dawn and Kalenna’s exultation of “Let your tongue walk on this puss-say!” is almost as ecstatic as The-Dream shouting “Fuck my brains out!” Diddy’s verse is a momentary distraction from the main event, and clearly the weakest bit, but the burbling bass keeps things interesting until Trey and Dirty Money bring back the interplay of their voices, and a touch of electronic distortion to wind out the track.
[8]

Zach Lyon: Packs enough forward momentum to feel half as long as it is, making swift jumps from a nicely energetic Trey to Dawn/Kalenna to Diddy to awesome robot voice. As such, it sounds more like a walloping transition than a walloping single.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Here’s where Diddy’s career tactic of being the least talented man in the room falls down. With no one on “Your Love” suited to being the most interesting part of a song, the whole things sounds like the part before something great happens. That transcendent bridge, that jaw-dropping guest verse, that irrepressible hook, however, entirely fails to materialize.
[4]

Alfred Soto: How much more would it have cost Diddy to keep Usher for one more song?
[4]

Hazel Robinson: Not my favourite off Last Train To Paris but that’s a pretty high scale, so this is still something I’ve hammered through iTunes so much I’m surprised it’s not burned on there like a bad pixel. Like the rest of the album, it’s an intoxicating mix of cockiness and desperation — Diddy saying he’ll have you on the bed face down but begging he needs you right now: confused and hubristic and pubescently lustful. Not bad for an artist whose contemporaries are dead or chucking out remix albums, innit.
[8]