The Singles Jukebox

Blastoff…?

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Micha Cavaseno: “Rocket” represents a strange new phenomenon in R&B. For the longest time, the chilled new-age aesthetic and trad R&B enjoyed several divides along demographic lines, and one of the most impactful was age. Even younger artists quickly found adherence to trad R&B output get them dismissed as sounding “old” compared to the bright and shiny millennial refusal to overtly signify R&B like your Frank Oceans. So more often than not, comebacks by veterans, even the icons of nostalgia, were easily reduced to dismissal as if they were recording on reel to reels and had their songs debuted over crackling Victrolas. En Vogue on the other hand have returned with a single that certainly sounds like them but clearly aspires to not be lost in the seas of synth-washed dreamscapes. It’s a fair gambit, and thankfully they do it well (even if I’m out here yelling “WHERE’S DAWN!?!?”), but it’ll be curious to see if it resonates well with their main fans as well as if it manages to be appreciated for what it is by younger ears.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I’ve had fun re-discovering Lucy Pearl, Dawn Robinson’s collaboration with Raphael Saadiq. She’s in good form on “Rocket,” enough of a pro to submit to the rhythmic tug of the verses because there ain’t much else goin’ on but the rent. 
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: I can hear Ne-Yo in the song’s structure (he wrote this), but what I can’t hear is any of the magic that made En Vogue the Funky Divas we knew and loved in the first place. With only two of the original quartet remaining (plus a long-time fill-in), this sounds fine, but totally unexceptional — and if it wasn’t credited to En Vogue, I doubt you’d know it was En Vogue. 
[4]

Julian Axelrod: I expected a slight update of vintage En Vogue, or maybe a contemporary R&B ballad with a hint of that En Vogue magic. I did not expect to hear a fractured, fuzzed-out fuck jam that sounds like three cyborg aunts programmed by Giraffage, Tinashe and Solange circa 2013 and let loose in a futuristic cloud palace. Unprocessed vocals and a beefier arrangement would probably help it soar even higher, but it feels silly to critique a group that sounds weirder and bolder than most singers half their age.
[7]

Stephen Eisermann: The ladies of En Vogue are terrific vocalists with richly expressive instruments and the sleek production on this track gives them a lot to work with. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rather subpar lyrics, but if you close your eyes and listen simply to the music of their voices and of the track, this is quite magical. 
[6]

William John: “Rocket” is unfashionably rendered, and it moves at a languid pace. That statement shouldn’t necessarily read pejoratively; given the way the American Hip Hop & R&B Song chart has lately been overwhelmed by iterations of the former, there’s something almost novel about what would otherwise be described as a mundane reversion to familiarity. What throws the song off balance are its strange adornments: a peculiar, violent line like “let me kiss your face off” vaults the listener out of insouciance, and the intention behind the insertion of what sounds like a computer’s impression of baby laughter at a climactic moment in the chorus might have been to evoke playfulness, but instead only prompts brow furrowing. It’s hard to admonish an iconic group like En Vogue for sprucing up their comeback single with some experimental elements, but the benefits of “Rocket”‘s unusual punctuation are negligible.
[5]