Jason Derulo – The It Girl
Note: it’s not safe to love a Grammy. I mean look at the shape of it!
[Video][Website]
[5.29]
Katherine St Asaph: I am fairly sure Jason Derulo’s girl does not have “it” but them.
[3]
Brad Shoup: His career is only two albums in, and I’m already looking back on it fondly. Derulo’s consistently brought a fierce, almost staccato delivery to some fine pop material. And while tossing off profanities in pop songs is generally a fool’s game, he’s pulled it off in the masterful “Ridin’ Solo” as well as here. Forsaking his previous helpings of processing, Derulo does his best to sell a so-so, BBMak-nificent Emanuel Kiriakou production. The whistled/hooted hook is probably the best part, but he also makes a couple falsetto jumps that ought to become a greater part of his arsenal. If he stays the course, he could end up this decade’s Andy Kim. Speaking of damning with faint praise, please tell me he didn’t just say he likes her better than a Grammy.
[5]
Dan Weiss: I love this song but I don’t have much to say about it. Neither does Jason Derulo.
[9]
Erick Bieritz: “I’ve been looking under rocks, breaking locks,” is a promising beginning, and a well-written song could continue from here to develop the idea of a woman who could invoke this sort of behavior. But something goes awry around the point where Derulo brags about his Grammy win and it’s all to pieces after that. The “it girl” becomes less a matter of fixation on someone else and instead a matter of possession, something that is valuable to the degree it reflects well on its owner. The ambiguous, objectifying nature of the word “it” as a pronoun is consequently the sense of the term that really comes across, and it doesn’t reflect well on Derulo or make for much of a pop song.
[5]
Jer Fairall: Whistling as the latest mark of male sensitivity co-mingling with that more timeless one, the gently plucked acoustic guitar. Not at all unpleasant, though typical of the blandness of its singer, who continues to sound, to me, like a less interesting Chris Brown, which I think we can all agree is not a good place to be.
[4]
Alfred Soto: If his voice boasted more of a twang he could be Luke Bryan or Chris Young, but instead he’s the nicest guy on R&B radio. Aww…he loves her more than a Grammy!
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Breezy, without character or identifying trait of any kind, but it does have a nice whistle hook. Could have been anybody, or everybody, so inoffensive is Jason. While the whistles are appreciated, putting them over a bit of post-chorus water-treading isn’t the best use for them.
[5]