The Singles Jukebox

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[Video][Website]
[5.54]

Anthony Easton: A needless addition in an attempt to sell a record that is mostly collections of old shit. It seems too beyond, considering how brilliant last year’s ninja release was. 
[3]

Brad Shoup: Studio throwaways can attain greatness too, and Beyoncé’s basically there. Twenty-five pairs of hands and didgeridude bass, and she still keeps everything light — fun, in fact. She’s not immune to trends, even here… the beat drops out and the backing vocals start to take on a “Nuclear” feel, but even as everything gets blowed, she’s still on the floor, literally dancing up a sweat.
[8]

Sonia Yang: Maybe Beyoncé got wind of her Internet fandom endlessly gushing about how fierce, amazing, and perfect she is and thus felt the need to prove that despite being fierce, amazing, and perfect — she’s just like us! Look at this dorky endearing home video of her using her foot as a phone, or wearing a sweatshirt that says “kale”! It’s endearingly goofy and human. Whether or not she succeeds in downplaying her image, she unfortunately downplays her music. The best part about Beyoncé for me has always been her passionate powerhouse vocals, and this pseudo speak-sing over dull trap does nothing for me. She doesn’t have to belt her heart out all the time — one can go the toned-down route vocally without being boring, and she has done so before.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: Even without the video, the constant repetition of the lyrics make this feel less a track for the clubs as a one for the gifsets. Every verse a little loop, a little hook, ready to be cut and pasted to Tumblr, a place where Bey knows you care.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Perhaps the one underdiscussed reason why Beyoncé is such a triumph is its editing; “7/11,” an expired dish of vocal and Vine leftovers, is proof. Or another reason: if Beyoncé took what a pop album should at minimum be and blew it all up to a colossal, giant-lettered statement, “7/11” assumes its audience doesn’t want anything more than ready catchphrases and GIFbait.
[3]

Crystal Leww: Sure, just an outtake, should have never seen the light of day, insane assemblage of sounds, etc. etc. etc. But still, I’ll be damned if this doesn’t inspire me to do some batshit armwaving in the club in the midnight to 1am block when I’m drunk enough to appreciate this insane collage of meme lyrics but not drunk enough to only want to sing along to “Drunk in Love.” Even Beyoncé’s outtakes are “fresher than you.” Gotdamnx3.
[8]

Will Adams: As an extension of Beyoncé, “7/11” is totally unnecessary; it doesn’t add anything to that album’s narrative, or rather, because that narrative is already perfect, it can’t. As a song, it’s downright lazy, with Beyoncé yelling catchphrases into her iPhone and calling it a day. The beat knocks, though; shame it wasn’t shelved for something more than an obvious cash grab.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: See, the thing about Detail is that, apart from “Drunk In Love” and Nicki Minaj’s “Lookin’ Ass Nigga,” I think most of his production credits are absolute garbage, all sound and flame signifying nothin’ (cf. Ray J, Wiz Khalifa, friggin’ J-Lo). This doesn’t break the latter chain. It’s lazy trap with Bey over-looped and over-fx’d on top of it. Accordingly, it’s her weakest single since I don’t even remember.  
[4]

Madeleine Lee: I love the mental image of Beyoncé getting drunk and giggly and doing goofy GarageBand experiments. This doesn’t give me much else though.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: I can’t help but feel annoyed, because if I imagine this as a series of bolted-together takes on individual lines, it’s possible to extrapolate a total banger from what’s here. Ultimately, it’s repetitious to a degree that approaches either waterboarding or a Ukrainian Eurovision entry without the pay-off, but it still gets some points because I enjoy hearing Beyoncé hiss authoritatively at me.
[4]

Megan Harrington: This, in all its effervescence and lightheartedness and genre smudging, is a cast-off. In Beyoncé’s perfect universe, “7/11” didn’t meet her standards. 
[10]

Alfred Soto: “Quality control” is Beyoncé’s motivator — not Hova, not Blue, not money. Why she thought this tuneless crypto-outtake deserved exhumation is a question her dad wants answering.
[3]

David Moore: What rubric do I use for Beyoncé? I’d probably enjoy this song without commenting much on it if it were by nearly anyone else, but knowing that I could hear it a million times on the radio, that it might be the biggest song of all time in any number of plausible alternate universes, leads me to preemptively hear it as way more massive than it probably is, simply because it will be (or, it could be, whether or not I think it should be, which is irrelevant; who am I, mere mortal, to pronounce on such things?). Beyoncé gives no fucks about the linearity of existence, multidimensional paradoxes, etc., which is to say that this one’s a [7], probably, but the scale goes to [11].
[7]