“FJWP” doesn’t have the same ring…
Katherine St. Asaph: QUIZ: What does this track have the exact same energy as?
A) Ty Dolla $ign ft. Charli XCX & Tinashe – “Drop That Kitty”
B) “Goop on Ya Grinch”
C) The TMZ headline “Mark Zuckerberg — Sexy & SHIRTLESS!”
B) The sexual banter of “Nutsacksandwich,” “Impalaexpert,” and “Moniqueisamazing” in this New York Magazine piece on the metaverse
E) The boob joke montage from Austin Powers in Goldmember (as opposed to the dick joke montage from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, a critical distinction)
F) All of the above
[3]
Julian Axelrod: Against all odds I’m still rooting for Sexyy Red’s breakout success, even if she has to remake “WAP” with Megan Thee Stallion swapped out for a Madame Tussaud wax figure of a ’70s pimp. I like to imagine Bruno Mars approached every woman in rap and said, “I’ll give you a ’90s R&B lowrider beat AND a horny simp hook IF you let me look taller than you in the video,” and only Sexyy and Cardi said yes. I truly cannot imagine anyone having sex to this song.
[7]
Leah Isobel: Who is this for?
[4]
Alfred Soto: I’m on record liking this quasi-MAGA artist, but “Fat Juicy & Wet” runs out of imagination after 45 seconds. She wants Bruno Mars’ crossover prowess, he wants — what, to prove he can get away with saying the p-word?”
[6]
Harlan Talib Ockey: “Pussy so good, made me throw up a set” is not something Bruno Mars should be saying. Song is otherwise good.
[7]
Claire Davidson: After “Uptown Funk,” so much of Bruno Mars’s persona has been defined by how well he straddles the line between “suave” and “cornball”—the latter of which feels somewhat inevitable, given his status as a 5’5” balladeer who has a penchant for saying shit like this in the public eye. The moment I saw the title “Fat Juicy & Wet,” with its on-the-nose suggestiveness, I was convinced Mars was pranking his audience by making a song as overtly ridiculous as possible, a heel-turn from the well-made but deeply conventional collaborations that have defined his past year. Indeed, this song is terrible. Bruno Mars is at his best when playing in the broadest possible strokes that allow his charisma to do the talking; when playing hype man to Sexyy Red, with very blunt descriptions of her sexual prowess, his attempts to project a sense of cool land with a resounding thud. That he has no chemistry with Sexyy Red isn’t surprising, either—after all, she’s 26, whereas he’s pushing 40—but she doesn’t help matters, her flow too loose to achieve the buoyancy this rubbery, obviously dated beat requires. If anything, her verses could stand to be a bit more outlandish, given how anxious this song is to lean into hyperbolic raunchiness; when the most creative punchline relies on milk mustache imagery, I’m left feeling like everyone here is grasping at straws. The fact that this song comes from the same man who made the “Finesse” remix is almost baffling, but the upside of that comparison is its assurance that “Fat Juicy & Wet” won’t have any staying power once its novelty fades.
[3]
Ian Mathers: A friend described Eggers’ Nosferatu as “deeply horny but not at all sexy,” which turns out to be a much better strategy for a gothic horror movie than a song titled “Fat Juicy & Wet.”
[4]
Nortey Dowuona: Why does this sound like a B-side that 03 Greedo gave to Jeremy Reaves in a session to gussy up?
[4]
Taylor Alatorre: Irrespective of ByteDance’s decision, forced TikTok memes will continue to exist in some form, and given that reality we should hope that more of them are like this: a non-malicious peddler of truth in advertising, insistent not on monopolizing your attention but merely borrowing it for a sec, asking for your kind consideration as a pair of cartoonishly inflated cheeks are shoved up against your nostrils. “Bubble Butt” wasn’t a bridge too far, Mars now realizes with the wisdom of age — it didn’t go far enough. That said, forced meme is still forced, and metatextual sexiness is about as sexy as its pronunciation.
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