The Singles Jukebox

The supergroup, anticipated by somebody, of Travis Scott and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi; presumably not asked: Jill Scott, Scott Baio, and Scott Evil…

[Video]
[4.67]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I’ve never quite gotten Travis Scott’s appeal. His music consists of pretty average bangers, but teenage boys over-hype him as an innovative trap messiah. But on “THE SCOTTS,” I finally feel like I might be hearing what they’ve been hearing. He and Kid Cudi have constructed something so brooding and epic, I voluntarily engaged with Fortnite and actually enjoyed it. 
[7]

Tobi Tella: These two getting a massive hit off a Fortnite event is one of the most 2020 things to happen. It succeeds in having wide, broad appeal and feeling like an amalgamation of every other Travis Scott song in existence: fun, but empty.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: Fortnite tie-in aside, the message of this tune is loud and clear: “Hello, we are two people you know about, and we’ve made a new rap group!” The beat’s got a catchy nautical beep to it. Everything else is insubstantial clatter.
[4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The one point is for Mike Dean’s synth freakout outro, which is ’70s prog in its leanings. The rest feels like ’80s pop prog: a joyless mismatch of styles by guys looking for a hit that somehow feels both endless and truncated all at once.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: Kid Cudi is quarantine music. Either you feel that in your gut or you don’t. The Unnecessarily Capitalized Scotts are also quarantine music, in that the single is solipsistic as hell (naming a track after yourself is a tad premature, don’t you think?), a pseudo-event in both the Boorstin and the Zoom-ennui senses: ephemeral while present, sensationless when gone.
[5]

Katie Gill: As I listened to the mp3, I mused on how this would be a decent song to score a video game trailer. It doesn’t really feel like a song, more like a snippet to pad out or introduce a mixtape. Each 15 to 30 seconds is perfectly constructed to be played alone, without context — say, as a YouTube ad. There’s no climax or narrative to the sound, but the climax or narrative could be in a cutscene, or seeing Mr. Halo shoot a guy. When I watched the video, I saw that I was 100% right. Go team?
[5]