Rich Brian & Chung Ha – These Nights
Rich in consensus, if not points…
[Video]
[3.43]
Will Adams: At this point I’m not sure what it would take for me to become invested in the Rich Brian project, but I do know that a poor Toro y Moi imitation is not it.
[4]
Kylo Nocom: “Bring It Back” was fun in that Yachty actually sounded like he was enjoying himself. This just sounds like another painful step in Rich Brian’s attempts to make something meaningful out of his career. Both vocalists sound like they’re trying to find a melody in this mess: Brian scrapes at his higher register in horrific whines, and Chung Ha’s verse opens with the ugliest notes (who’s gonna do it like meeeeeeee). If acting hard for suburban kids didn’t work out, an artistic turn ultimately failed to prove your worth, and this sensitive outing is as poorly executed as it is, maybe Rich Brian should instead invest in more microwaved bread tutorials.
[1]
Alfred Soto: Rich Brian makes Justin Chang on the Dan + Shay single sound like Merle Haggard. The nadir of eighties revivalism — Jack Wagner but not adenoidal.
[2]
Stephen Eisermann: This is a pretty standard modern pop-R&B track, but man, does Rich Brian sound out of place. Where the production shines, Rich Brian struggles to sound like the right voice, and he’s outperformed on his own track by Chung Ha. She gives us crossover, and he gives us SNL parody.
[5]
Jibril Yassin: Rich Brian is entirely out of his depth, his tinny and anonymous singing voice doing no favours. None of the charisma you’d associate with him is present — did it disappear with the addition of that awful mullet?
[4]
Tobi Tella: I’ve never found much interesting about Rich Brian, and unfortunately this doesn’t buck the trend. On a song that seems like it’s going for introspective, his lyrics are shallow and bland. Chung Ha gives the track some life, but her deep, throaty voice doesn’t go well with the instrumental, and her lyrics aren’t much different. A mildly unpleasant listening experience through and through.
[3]
Ian Mathers: The thing about “Indigo” (also from this… collective?) is that it was way more distinctive than it really needed to be, full of little idiosyncrasies that caught the ear. I keep listening to “These Nights” hoping for more of the same, but that’s the real problem with this otherwise decent song; there’s absolutely nothing here that feels distinctive.
[5]
Don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against a decent Song To Vibe To, and that’s all “These Nights” really is with its synths that (don’t really know when to) fade out and tempo that coasts by neon hotel signs. But the peripeteia of this song is the belief that its name brand feature can somehow compensate for the lack of synergy between Rich Brian and Chung Ha. After all, JAIE and lost space’s “discohaze” ambience was never meant to be inhabited by a rapper auto-tuned post-infinity and by a singer whose attempt at laid-back vocals seem anything but (the vowels over-turned, the words over-intonated, the ends of phrases stressed instead of tapering — “ME-an,” “ME-e,” “HI-ills” to name a few).