The Singles Jukebox

Huh, suddenly I have a craving for Laffy Taffy…

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[5.71]

Will Adams: Sevyn Streeter wants you to know that she’s down for life. She’s also down for having gorgeous, starry-eyed production be marred with clunky percussion.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Some artists form such an ineluctable bond between role and person that to call it “performance” is a vulgarity. Think Jeff Bridges. Or K Michelle. Inhabiting a pathos that never turns pathetic, Sevyn Streeter can almost purify duet partners like Chris Brown. The good grade is for solid work on an unspectacular song but I throw rose petals at her feet.
[7]

Iain Mew: The chorus is clever, the choral effects and other vocal production touches are cool (I mean, I like Imogen Heap too)… and the keyboard preset beat is so bad it’s hard to focus on anything else.
[4]

Juana Giaimo: “D4L” doesn’t really commit to one position, in the sense that Sevyn Streeter wants to be both casual and romantic but doesn’t really explore either — too melodious to be fun, but she still uses a silly acronym as a title. In the end, she mostly sounds quite desperate.
[6]

Crystal Leww: “It Won’t Stop” ended up being one of the biggest surprises of the year, a fun, breezy, sexy love song. Sevyn Streeter’s performance in “D4L” is too big and wild while the production here mirrors “It Won’t Stop” in that it’s… breezy and chill. She’s talented, but this doesn’t fit.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: The flaw of this song is that dull throb of a drum sound that ruins the chorus. There’s really no reason for it; everything else in this song is so meticulous and crafted and competent you can detect the hands of experts all over it. I can’t understand why anyone would deliberately make a record that sounds like this, with a charismatic singer and a decent tune completely overwhelmed by a single bad production choice. Who’s remixing this into an [8] at least, and can they get on it yesterday?
[5]

Cédric Le Merrer: I recently attended a Brian Wilson show with my wife. Some of it was incredibly beautiful. Some of it was painful (it will shock no one to learn that Wilson has had better days). A lot of it was corny as shit. But the room was packed with couples having the time of their lives, and even if I probably don’t want to know their opinion on Beyoncé or the state of music today, I felt a kinship with them as I was sitting there with the woman I’m in the process of getting old with. In that moment I felt that the world needed more corny songs about long lasting love and commitment. Just a few years ago, “D4L” wouldn’t have felt so out of place in the pop landscape, but today this super corny song feels like a daring proposition, even in the age of Big Baby D.R.A.M. Deep down, The-Dream is a big softie and he needs female vocalists to really let that out. Not so deep down I am a big softie too and I’m going to send this song to my wife now.
[8]