The Singles Jukebox

It’s that song that samples that song about a toilet bowl.

[Video]
[4.38]

Micha Cavaseno: I hate stadium rock masquerading as electronica, almost as much as I hate rappers going in over stadium rock drums with enough space on the beat so that there isn’t any sort of beat pocket to really commit to. So the fact that A$AP Rocky and Moby would combine these two flavors together in the most stomach-turning sandwich I could ever ingest via ears is truly something. All in all the record is super dependant on the realistic notion that there’s a whole decade or so of music listeners who haven’t heard Moby or are continuously impressed with Rocky’s “Wiz Khalifa meets fake depth but nowhere near as proficient and cushioned by great aesthetics” routine. And hey, there’s more than a few people for that.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Why the hell A$AP thought a comeback required a Moby interpolation is a question for which no satisfying answer exists. Perhaps larder-is-bare syndrome prevailed.
[2]

Ryo Miyauchi: Rocky’s hollow writing remains frustrating in its inability to convey any solid emotion: “We kiss to Frank Ocean and Blonde” is just another classic example. What’s fascinating here, though, is that Moby sample, which does a lot of the heavy lifting by emoting where the rapper absolutely can’t; in reality, the original is prime wallpaper trip-hop trying to do an impression of sadness and tragedy. “A$AP Forever,” then, is just emotional ambiguity layered upon emotional ambiguity, and it just seems so desperate to feel something out of its many moving parts instead of this inexplicable numbness.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: Twisted, moaning synths slide backwards while A$AP Somebody Attractive fills up the puffy, empty drums until the sample splits open as Moby sings softly with the sample from “Porcelain.”
[4]

Iain Mew: I’m not sure how this works for anyone who didn’t hear “Porcelain” everywhere for a while, but the series of refractions of it work for me. First the sample is mulched into fuzzy energy, tantalisingly unresolved behind bouncing Rocky. Then the sample’s set free on its own for a barely believable length of time, which initially seems an odd way round to do it — the set-up placed after the trick. It only makes sense once it turns into the lack of resolution writ large, Moby there to be brutally cut off without a goodbye.
[7]

Julian Axelrod: Rocky’s music used to echo Houston screw and New York boom-bap, but his recent songs recall a cool teen’s Tumblr: a surface-level collage of name brands, psychedelic aesthetic, and 90s pop ephemera resurrected in the name of nostalgia. Yet there’s something intoxicating about curating your way to a new self, and no one’s better at it than A$AP Rocky. On paper, “A$AP Forever” seems like a lazy flip of a decades-old Moby song. But when I hear Rocky bob and weave through the woozy strings and thunderous drums in triple-time, all my qualms slip away. It sounds like a supernova exploding in slow motion, a stunning display of star power that’s kind of beautiful despite itself.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I have always hated “Porcelain,” even as I liked plenty of other songs off Play, and found its ubiquity in culture to be incredibly disheartening. Having it under ugly drums and Rocky’s raps (which fit better with the drums than the sample) makes it feel completely unwelcome, and the new additions don’t change the pretentious nothingness at its core.
[2]

Will Adams: The opening strains of “Porcelain” have been all but flattened into background noise at this point, so setting it to Ferg’s triplet flows and popping percussion doesn’t make it any less dull. The midway switch returns the sample to its original state, making for an even more lethargic listen; the effect is less an extended coda and more like you accidentally hit the skip track button on your iPod.
[4]