The Singles Jukebox

No official video as of this posting, so this is what you get. You’re welcome.

[Video][Website]
[6.88]

Thomas Inskeep: Thanks to both Banks’s series of public tantrums and her recent musical output, I was ready and set to give this a shit review. It’s even produced by fucking Dr. Luke and one of his minions. But here’s the thing: we care about Banks because of the quality of her output. No one would care about her if she was just a rando starting Twitter fights. But this is Azealia Banks, who made “212”; whose only album to date, 2014’s Broke with Expensive Taste, is in some circles a classic — and which I myself voted for in 2014’s Pazz & Jop Critics Poll. (It still holds up, too.) And “Treasure Island” is some hot-ass sex rap shit bouncing on a killer electro-bounce house track. Banks does what she does best — which is to say, she both drops nimble-tongued raps on the verses and sings sweetly on the chorus. This is prime Azealia Banks, back like she has no business being and now actually making me eager for that long-gestating sophomore album. She even uses the word “badonkadonk” in 2018 and makes it work. That’s talent, ain’t it?
[10]

Will Rivitz: The album on which “Treasure Island” will reside is the second entry in Azealia Banks Fantasea series. The name implies something ethereal, impossible scenes drawn in the ocean lost and forgotten soon after their creation, a wild dream dissolved upon an alarm’s ring: appropriate imagery for this song, about which even after half a dozen listens this evening alone I cannot recall a single detail.
[4]

Tim de Reuse: She’s got good momentum during the odd moments when she’s allowed to get up to speed, as long as you don’t listen too close and start to catch the ocean-themed half-jokes peppered throughout, or the hilariously unsexy line “Pounce to bounce and bounce on dick.” I’ve heard this chorus before at least a few times, too, the exact same synth preset playing those same exact chords, and it’s not terribly special anymore; still, the smooth verbosity of phrases like “twinkles on the watery horizon” at least makes for a relaxing hook to half-listen to.
[6]

Will Adams: Banks is in typical fashion, flexing both her rapping and singing abilities back and forth. What’s not typical is that the track follows suit, alternating between percussive throb and lush chromatic chords. This means “Treasure Island” feels at times disjointed, but the axiom still holds: Azealia Banks even at less than 100% is still damn good.
[7]

Stephen Eisermann: The messy chorus holds back an otherwise terrific track, where Azealia lets her flow dominate the fantastic production (still, fuck you Dr. Luke). Her rhymes work well in conjunction with the tropical house/R&B fusión beat, but it’s truly her delivery that, time and time again, takes her content to the next level.
[8]

Alfred Soto: She’s still got her chops, cutting syllables and extending them back again. She sings when she feels like it. And just because she’s a “provocateur” she hires Dr. Luke for the beats.
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: Lukasz Gottwald’s last appearance on the Hot 100 was in 2016 with “Greenlight,” a Pitbull-by-numbers single that topped at #95. Progress, I guess. Also progress is that I wasn’t able to peg this right away as a Gottwald/Cirkut joint, which was dramatically less likely when the duo were at their peak. The decision to bury the future bass melody deep in the mix shows that they’ve gotten a bit more subtle with their trend-jacking. If the goal was to sound like an experimental producer gone pop rather than vice versa, they succeeded. As for Azealia, she extends the oceanic metaphor to its widest possible expanse, even sneaking in a Bloods vs. Crips reference that belies her 212 roots. “How do I get you there?”, with its slurred yet forceful delivery, sticks the most after repeat listens, proving that Banks’ greatest weapon is not her rapidfire wordplay but her penchant for memorable phrasing.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Two Luke possibilities, equally plausible, neither diabolical: either this track has been sitting around for years, or people who have burned bridges end up with other people who have burned bridges. But bridges aside, “Anna Wintour” and Elon Musk’s destruction alone are enough to give Banks a great musical year. Good thing, too, because this soggy sprawl sure wouldn’t.
[5]