The Singles Jukebox

DERRIERES! (Alt. title: DAAAAVE!)

[Video][Website]
[5.12]

Jer Fairall: Just determined to make me look the fool, aren’t ya Sean?
[3]

Hazel Robinson: I don’t mind novelty records about the creator’s passion for ass and/or titties, even when paired with a semi-incongruous mashup. I do mind novelty records that confuse an MC Hammer sample with fun. Example one: the sample of DJ Assault that goes into Super Mash Bros’ “Meet Me At Fantasy Island” is amazing and ludicrous and dog-hanging-out-of-car-window, whereas this sounds like a dickhead with no ideas going to the retro night at your local student union, bringing out a rack of Corky’s shots and yelling “ISN’T THIS ALL JUST SO IRONIC?”
[3]

Kat Stevens: Brilliant! DJ Assault must be so proud!
[8]

Alfred Soto: Spare, thick grab-ass, and fuck-ass too, with handclaps — if you loved 2 Live Crew, here’s an heir. The Hammer sample, as mysterious as a Middle Eastern melody drifting within earshot from the shop down the street, is exactly what academics mean by “recontextualized.” Plus, I’ve been waiting all my life for Nicki Minaj to pronounce “mandingo.”
[7]

Brad Shoup: I’m predisposed to overrate any song that reps Pootie Tang and Mandingo [LINK NOT AVAILABLE], but the detached tone of this track saps a lot of my goodwill. Any song that just repeats “ass” for the hook invites comparisons to Uncle Luke, who would have elevated the concept into the realm of the absurd. Nicki comes closest to this approach, but she just ends up with a joke about Michael Kors’ stinginess. If they’d actually invited Hammer instead of releasing an updated snap track, the Internet could have properly gone nuts.
[5]

Zach Lyon: Big Sean presents himself as just about the most abhorrent motherfucker south of Chris Brown’s attempt as a rapper, and Nicki sounds like she didn’t think anyone would ever actually hear this, and it’s the most misogynistic thing on the radio right now — but ugh, it’s also sort of the most fantastically avant-garde production on the radio, and I do specifically mean on the radio. This is one of the few situations where the clean edit is so much better than the dirty: not only is a good 10% of the ick scrubbed away, but the echo-censors enhance the weirdness of the beat. And I like how the ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS overtakes every single verse like a virus, like nothing Sean or Nicki says can stand up to the force of the ass itself.
[7]

Michelle Myers: Big Sean is just enough of a loathsome tool that I enjoy hating him; here he reminds me of Chris Brown without the lisping rap flow and the history of violence against women. The MC Hammer sample is obnoxious, but in the numbingly vapid context of the song, it works. “Go stupid,” Big Sean urges, and I do. The remix is greatly improved by the inclusion of some above-average Minaj trickery. She is cuter than usual here, less wacky. And at some point while writing this review, I did end up Googling her ass.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: 1. No song that uses this 4/4 synth handclap beat will ever be better than the Lemmings soundtrack. 2. This title — the punctuation alone! — is why rockists rant about pop, hip hop and dance music. Here, they’re right. This isn’t the lowest common denominator; this is a zero denominator. It cannot exist. 3. Nicki Minaj’s presence on this exploitative, soul-deadening void evokes the exact sinking feeling I felt when I read what happened to Moira in The Handmaid’s Tale. I don’t really care how inappropriate that comparison is. 4. It’s fitting that the video has a bunch of red Solo cups, because “Red Solo Cup” was better. 5. Big Sean made me say “Red Solo Cup” was better than something. I hate that. 6. I also hate music.
[0]