The Singles Jukebox

Finally, it’s CL’s big solo break! (stuffs a coupla years of singles down the memory hole)

[Video][Website]
[3.67]

Cédric Le Merrer: Like a synecdoche for CL’s solo career, this combines everything needed for takeoff but is so lacking in subtlety that it doesn’t fly but jumps like The Hulk, landing heavily with a resounding “thoom”.
[6]

Iain Mew: You’re all technically ready for your (geographically specific) big arrival, but when it’s you being pushed above your music, in this game it kind of relies on you having something to say. That seems to be a problem for CL, illustrated and magnified by having already blown both having nothing to say as the point and “hello” on half-singles, plus double helpings of jet-setting. Is it such a surprise that it’s third time empty? The lack of direction means that even the best of “Lifted”‘s lightweight hip-pop falls short of matching another C.L. and ends up like a less awful version of recent Lily Allen.
[3]

Will Rivitz: If you ever wanted to know what would happen if “Gucci Gucci” didn’t stumble into a fire beat, we’ve got the perfect song for you.
[3]

Madeleine Lee: More frustrating than this being CL’s third or so “first single” is that the steel drums and actual bass get added in about a minute too late, making the rest of the song seem flat by comparison. CL’s recital of cute weed-related Instagram captions is less irritating than the try-hard antagonism of “Hello Bitches,” but at least try-hard means that someone tried.
[4]

Jessica Doyle: I don’t understand why the media hype is bringing with it casual admissions that the song was actually recorded a year ago, tossed off after CL listened to some Method Man; which is of a piece with the media hype around “Dr. Pepper” including the mention that CL was bored and rapped about the can of soda she happened to be holding; and the media hype around “Hello Bitches” including the tidbit that the video was filmed in five hours. It’s as if, knowing that the American market doesn’t look kindly upon its entrants repeatedly promising to work hard (as the Korean market requires), YG has decided to err in the other direction, to make CL’s American-focused work look as slapdash as possible: “Oh, this old thing?” I’ve been rooting for a CL branding that embraces her multi-country childhood and high-fashion ties, rather than buries them (which was arguably her approach on “Dirty Vibe” and “Hello Bitches”). And probably that wouldn’t work in the conservative United States either. But this? She’s sinking.
[2]

Alfred Soto: I’m all good with the Method Man lift — hell yeah and all that. But the production has as much mystery as coffee grounds: echo-laden vocal mixed high, finger snaps in the right place, a singer trying to sell hedonism as if it came easily in American pop contexts.
[4]

A.J. Cohn: While any charges of appropriation or theft are somewhat mitigated by Method Man’s appearance in the video, it’s still discomforting that what is essentially an awkward cover is being billed as anything more.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: I give a certain amount of leeway to non-native English speakers who want to color their songs with phrases from the globe’s lingua franca: the bilingualism is usually for effect rather than semantics, and I try to take it in that spirit. “Lifted” is entirely in English though, and English that CL raps, a vocal method — I’ll state the obvious to underline the error — in which the sound, significance, and social context of the words delivered is crucial to the meaning they impart. I’m not saying CL can’t speak English — she’s fluent — just that she can’t rap in English. At best, “Lifted” sounds like a collection of hip-hop-derived phrases — and, as her attenuated pronunciation of “cold” indicates, that often means African-American-derived — bolted together into rhyming couplets. If the verses evinced more faculty, for instance, I’d imagine the hook’s Method Man re-enactment were a sly skewing of gender or sexuality; as it is I wonder if CL knows what forties or shorties actually are. Yet even if she could better inhabit rap vernacular — say, at least as well as Iggy Azalea or Gwen Stefani does — I wonder whether that would improve the song. To access the world’s largest music market — and, for non-Western performers, this applies exponentially — means to mimic American styles. When non-Westerners perform Western styles, their foreignness accentuates the racial appropriation on which Western pop music is built, but it’s an appropriation which white Western audiences are far more willing to exculpate themselves: note that “Lifted” also quotes (excruciatingly) renowned foreign thieves the Rolling Stones. Which is to say: how is a pop performer like CL meant to succeed when the West is so unwilling to allow Asian artists into its charts and on to its airwaves anyway?
[2]

Mo Kim: All I have to say is: CL, when your entire chorus hinges on the promise of “getting lifted,” you can’t leave your audience stranded on the tarmac.
[4]