The-Dream – Fuck My Brains Out
In which Terius indulges further his passion for saying naughty words.
[Video][Website]
[5.50]
Jer Fairall: Veers so close to a Prince parody that it feels like the work of a dirty minded Weird Al Yankovic.
[4]
Michaela Drapes: I guess it’s okay when The-Dream apes Prince, but I mostly find it really annoying. He’s got all the details right, but it’s such slavishly shallow homage that I don’t have any respect for him when all the heavy breathing is over.
[3]
Doug Robertson: What it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in… well, nothing, really. It’s a pretty unpleasant slice of self-aggrandising misogyny whose only real redeeming feature is that musically it sounds like it should be on the Top Gun soundtrack. Which is the sole reason why it’s getting a couple of points from me.
[2]
Jonathan Bradley: The-Dream’s trick here is in making sex sound like a suicide; “Before you leave, fuck my brains out” as a response to a cheating lover is so self-destructive that the immolation approaches the physical. By the second verse, the woman is in tears, mute, and left “laying in the sheets.” The nominal intent is to demonstrate the singer’s prowess as a lover, but it better demonstrates his prowess as a Prince disciple; as a character, The-Dream is practically absent from his own narrative. He is there primarily as a ruinous force, a demon embodiment of downfall stemming from temptation and pride. With this synth duststorm and that deliberately unfeeling vocal, the boudoir turns hellish.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Just when I thought he’d run out of shawties to fuck and/or fuck with, here’s more brains to fuck and/or blow. The guitar and vocal harmonizing all over the intro is a fabulous trick — a better one than the unfortunate one who has to receive his ambitious member.
[6]
Alex Ostroff: An update of “Fast Car” that’s dirtier, both musically and lyrically. Where the earlier track was an attempt at seduction that found Terius worried that his girl was “a little too sweet,” “Fuck My Brains Out” finds our intrepid Casanova servicing his soon-to-be-ex in between newer conquests, indulging her need for his sexual prowess “one more time for the road.” The entire scenario is palpably ridiculous, but this wouldn’t be the first time that The-Dream engaged in elaborate post-breakup revenge fantasies. In the past, these songs sounded tortured, with cries of anguish and betrayal submerged in heavy production. Not so here. Terius audibly relishes every word of “Fuck My Brains Out,” lasciviously declaring that he “done her round the clock, twenty-leven times a week,” “talking with [his] tongue ’til she couldn’t speak,” and even imitating her pleas in both the chorus and the coda. Meanwhile, he’s deployed every trick in his Purple box, from “Kiss”-style funk guitar decorating the verses, to panting, hissing and screaming, to an electric guitar line that grinds itself into the ground. That he manages to make “Fuck My Brains Out” sound like the most deliriously joyful phrase in music is merely an added bonus. (Cee-Lo, take notes.)
[9]
Anthony Easton: Pretty sweet little funk nugget, nothing as lurid as the title would suggest, but worthwhile none-the-less.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: The-Dream is like critical royalty so one must tread and listen carefully, but if this chorus had been the work of The Lonely Island it would be embarrassing, and really, it is. And you could be forgiven based on how awful some of the lyrics are — I mean, rhyming “lick it” and “stick it” pretty much is admitting you ran out of ideas. Musically it’s stronger than that, but overcooked as it bludgeons you with elements that on their own might have been sexy, but are a little hard to take together.
[5]
I’m usually not a prude or a scold when it comes to pop, but the phrase “turned around got on her knees” totally just turns my stomach in this song. It’s just such a sad, dehumanizingly animalistic image, and I don’t want to judge The-Dream by it since obviously it’s a narrative and he’s playing a character, but it still makes it hard for me not to think of him as a disgusting little creep.
Just to clarify, I’m not knocking the sexual position, just the way the initiation of it is described, exactly like a dog presenting itself.
(which, though it’s obviously called “doggiestyle,” is not ideally how it’s supposed to unfold).
I mean, in this song he is a disgusting little creep? Or at least a total cad? But he usually is.
I had a similar reaction to Josh and Doug when I first heard this, and the rest of the ILM Terius crew argued that it’s no worse than anything on his previous albums (and perhaps there was more offensive material earlier). There are days when I feel like the song is structurally offensive – the scenario being set up can’t be anything but gross and kind of awful, and other days where angry/upset/cathartic break-up sex seems par for the course and within the realm of my imagination. It doesn’t make me *like* Terius (or his character) that much as a person, but I don’t think I ever really did. At least not after Love v. Money which was the last time it felt like he was actively interested in his objects of affection.
I think maybe his relish at being a total bastard is musically attractive in the same way that shallow bitchiness (while something I don’t value in friends, family, etc.) can be particularly appealing in song.
“I think maybe his relish at being a total bastard is musically attractive in the same way that shallow bitchiness (while something I don’t value in friends, family, etc.) can be particularly appealing in song.”
Yeah.
I marvel at the audacity of the narrative. I mean, this man, this woman, this story, cannot exist in real life. This idea that, nice guy or not, Terius is such a magnificent doer of sex that a girl will turn him out but beg for one last one fling before she does is fantastical. I can’t see how the song has a point if its singer is supposed to be anything but despicable.
fair enough, but the song still sucks because of how baldly it apes Prince!
“I think maybe his relish at being a total bastard is musically attractive”
This is my feeling with about 60% of The-Dream music; whenever I hear a song in isolation I’m often repelled. It doesn’t help that the Frank Ocean record mines much of Nash’s territory and impressed me a helluva lot.
I’m not the only one who thought that Alex was talking about Tracy Chapman for a second, right?
@Josh: How baldly it apes Prince = the entire M.O. of The-Dream when he isn’t busy writing Umbrella or Singles Ladies. Either you buy his shtick or you don’t. Especially after ‘Love/Hate’ once he stopped writing “songs” so much as extended mood pieces, he sinks or swims on his sound. Ditto his work with Electrik Red – either you think pop music needs a slightly updated approach to Vanity 6, or you don’t.
@Ian: Sorry, forgot the audience. I’m so used to talking about The-Dream with a particular circle of people who know his catalogue inside out that saying Fast Car –> Yamaha –> FMBO seemed like something that could be explained with a YouTube link shorthand.
@Alfred: I need to spend more time with the Frank Ocean. I quite liked parts of it the first few times, but it didn’t really stick with me. It’s summer now, so it’s probably time to try the record with a new season.
No need to apologize, it just made for some unintentional humour (“well, yes, I imagine this song probably WOULD be dirtier”).
Was late by several minutes in submitting my review; just want to point out that, unlike the rest of you all, I compared Terius to Johnny Thunders rather than to Prince (for throwing in big fat who-gives-a-fuck lame-ass rock and synth riffs and half-assed humming and half-assed yelps that are the essence of pretending not to give a shit). Also said that I thought he was more interested in fucking minds than pussies. Gave it an 8.
When I was reading about the new track on ILX I kept seeing the comparisons to “Fast Car,” and got REALLY built up for a Tracy Chapmanesque Terius track, and was sorely disappointed.
I also don’t think this is all that lewd or nasty or dirty. I also didn’t think Snoop’s “Wet” was all that bad, so maybe I just have a stomach for R&B forwardness.
“This idea that, nice guy or not, Terius is such a magnificent doer of sex that a girl will turn him out but beg for one last one fling before she does is fantastical.”
Nah.