Naughty Boy ft. Beyoncé & Arrow Benjamin – Runnin’ (Lose It All)
Bey goes British house.
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[5.60]
Jonathan Bogart: When was the last time Beyoncé lent her voice to music that wasn’t hers, in the contradictory pop-music auteur sense? Cadillac Records? It’s hard to hear her as an anonymous house diva here; we’re too familiar with the warmth of her lower register and the steely authority of her belting. Arrow Benjamin (whoever that might be) has a perfectly fine creamy voice, but he can’t compete with her for intimacy or force.
[7]
Iain Mew: If I were Emeli Sandé, I don’t think I’d be particularly happy that the first thing Naughty Boy does now that he can work with Beyoncé is to produce “Heaven”: the HD remake. Arrow Benjamin plays the extra character that no one wanted.
[4]
Will Adams: Beyoncé and Arrow Benjamin sing like they’re trying to slow down the song, while Naughty Boy’s arrangement builds and builds until nothing happens. I had high hopes for the results of a “beyoncé + drum & bass” Google search; “Runnin'” is better than the current offering, but it’s still disappointing.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Beyoncé sings pretty, Arrow Benjamin sings pretty, Naughty Boy’s tune is pretty enough but too simple by about half, which means half is all it deserves. Like a pleasant painting on a doctor’s office wall, this sounds nondescriptly pleasant.
[5]
Scott Mildenhall: March, April and May 2014: BBC Radio 1’s Head of Music tweets to proclaim Naughty Boy’s “Home” as “one of this year’s biggest tracks”. It fails to go top 40. April 2015: the same man declares the follow-up to be “[p]otentially one of this year’s biggest songs”. Everything goes quiet for months, until it finally emerges in September with surprise Beyoncé. Unless Noel Edmonds has given Naughty Boy the last of his inside knowledge to use as leverage against the BBC, it’s hard to know quite how he continues to get such good breaks in the face of such of underwhelming returns. However he got Beyoncé’s number for her to phone this in, he should be eternally grateful, because star power aside, she was made for this song. Sometimes she just blankly Beyoncés her way through ballads, but here she’s impassioned yet steely, troubled but just about composed, and in full voice. Just like yesterday’s unplanned duet, the interplay is great, too. Arrow Benjamin unsurprisingly doesn’t sound like he recorded this with Beyoncé, but that’s good: there’s a distance between them, and that’s half of what the song’s about.
[8]
W.B. Swygart: An exercise in brand values. You could give Beyoncé’s bit to, say, Ella Eyre, and it wouldn’t have the slightest impact on the quality of the record, but it wouldn’t look half as impressive on the CV, would it? And yet, this still feels a bit like sticking a hot tub on your balcony, because everything else is pretty standard British Top 40 Record In The Year 2015: chorus that sounds A Bit drum ‘n’ bass, lyrics about how running is like feelings or feelings are like running, male vocalist trying to sing a couple of decades older than he is. Slightly nice unwinding funk noises at points; would be better if it sounded like Beyoncé knew they were happening.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: The obvious unasked question: What the fuck is Beyoncé doing in the Jess Glynne slot of a Naughty Boy single? Wasn’t Beyoncé supposed to have changed the game enough for Bey not to have to do any cursory guest appearances at least until the next album? Did it just not sell well enough in the UK (though it hardly flopped there)? Or does somebody want Naughty Boy to break that bad? It’s not like he had anything interesting to say about their collaboration to suggest it was inspired by anything but a budget meeting. So: why? It’s not like the song’s a worldstopper; it’s essentially what a trance remix of “Halo” would have sounded like in 1999. Beyoncé, even when Skyping it in, has enough gravitas as a performer to elevate that anyway, but she can only do so much.
[4]
Alfred Soto: I like the idea of Beyonce doing work for hire. I imagine her in bed listening to Moko and Katy B and thinking, “Lemme try some of this British house shit.” And the track isn’t bad when Arrow Benjamin keeps his trap shut.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Sandé isn’t listed in this song’s Wikipedia article, but I expect she’ll show up eventually. I’m not sure I buy Beyoncé chasing so much as conquering things, but she sells the latter. Arrow Benjamin’s got the despair though, running through a forest of gentle drum patter.
[6]
Sabina Tang: No doubt there’s a business rationale for why this Beyoncé ballad is top-billed by the producer who stuck a drum’n’bass beat under it. The latter is elegant enough to serve; it’s the second feature who doesn’t live up to the company.
[7]
you guys this song is really terrible