The final battle between corporate shilling and rockism awaits us!

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[4.50]

Tobi Tella: SZA sounds smooth and fun, free of the baggage that makes her R&B so good and fully committed to making a great pop song, JT wisely plays backup. Why is a song from Trolls World Tour this good?
[7]

Kylo Nocom: Okay, quick aside, can we talk about Trolls World Tour? It seems like it’s actually going to try to tackle music genre distinctions in a way that’s accessible to the kids: the trolls are all visiting worlds named after Pop, Funk, Classical, Techno, Country and Rock for the sake of defeating Rock World’s dictator in some sort of Last Airbender quest. The premise basically being anti-rockist propaganda is badass even though it just confirms everyone’s beliefs that poptimism is corporate shilling. But, really, what the fuck is going on? How are they tackling, according to the cast, the reggaeton troll, the K-pop trolls, the smooth jazz trolls, and the presence of a hip hop troll but no hip hop land? Like, duh, these are all just cameos to appeal to a broad audience, but there’s no way this movie doesn’t just confuse the kids. If the end-goal is to raise a bunch of children to piss off people that care about what’s being called disco or not, then I’m all for it! But it’s still weird! What I’m basically trying to say is that “The Other Side,” like SZA’s other two big white-man-funk singles, makes funk sound like the least fun thing in the world, and that if I was a 5-year-old having to listen to this I’d end up a Rock Troll too.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: Baby Keem waits on a plastic chair between 2 couches. Finally, SZA, Isaiah Rashad, Reason, SiR, Lance Skiiwalker and Zacari come in and sit on the right couch. Kendrick, SchoolBoy Q, Jay Rock and Ab-Soul come in and sit on the left couch. Baby Keem says, “Go.” After 5 hours of rage, recriminations, tears, hugging, and Lance and SiR showing them a flowchart for watching King of the Hill properly, SZA wrote this for Justin Timberlake.
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: There’s a focus-group-tested, sterile quality that keeps me from genuinely liking this breezy, summery collaboration. Still, I’m sure it’ll sound pleasant enough planning in the background of whatever JCPenny or Apple store. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: “You start to feel like you’re losing your shine,” Justin Timberlake mumbled while regarding his thickening features in the bathroom mirror. SZA might wonder if letting this lamprey attach himself to her will atrophy her self-control and innate sense of rhythm. Certainly neither needs canned Daft Punk post-disco. 
[2]

Katie Gill: Well that Man of the Woods period was thankfully short, wasn’t it? This is a perfectly serviceable song that does its job of playing over the credits as something animated trolls can dance to. It’s not as much of an earworm as “Can’t Stop The Feeling” and thus I doubt it’ll have a fraction of that song’s staying power, but I appreciate its existence if only so I’ll change up the earworm I inevitably get when someone sings the title phrase. The whole song sounds nostalgic, to the point where when I first heard this song, I spent a solid minute trying to think of what it samples because I’ve heard that sound before, it has to sample something. Turns out the ‘something’ is the mid 2000s Justin Timberlake sound itself.
[6]

Will Adams: Timberlake’s been flogging this cod-funk horse for nearly fifteen years; I don’t know what else I could have expected. It’s like he heard Calvin Harris’s remix of “The Weekend” and figured he could do the same. A few problems here: 1) a “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” retread that’s been sweetened with aspartame; 2) SZA’s vocal buried in an already muddy mix; 3) centering the song on a cliche as ground down as “the grass is greener on the other side.”
[3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: “Say So,” but even more kidz-boppified. SZA sounds good, but Timberlake sounds like he’s a reanimated corpse. And yet, the electric piano loop still draws me in, elevating this from kids movie schlock to moderately groovy kids movie schlock.
[4]