T-Pain – Take Your Shirt Off
Sometimes, you just have to do it on your own…
[Website]
[6.00]
Chuck Eddy: Especially after “I’m On A Boat,” I want to like T-Pain; went into this with my mind open (cute idea for a song), and he shut it more with every retarded “motherfucking” he spouted. The idea of the guy has always been way more fun than his reality. And I say that as a major Zapp fan. So anyway: one point for the Jay-Z rejoinder; one for the Petey Pablo reference; one for the snatches of reggae patois.
[3]
Al Shipley: Pain has always had a big obnoxious personality on display all over his albums, and occasionally in his hooks for other artists. But given how mellow and melodious all his solo hits have been, it seems like a big miscalculation to release something this shamelessly over the top as a lead single. Even as someone pretty accustomed to his quirks and bad attempts at levity, I actually find this a little off-putting.
[4]
John Seroff: The best bari sax line I’ve heard since “Young Boy“, and a spastic, flailing energy on a par with Pain’s own “Church“. Unlike “Church”, it’s extremely well served on the radio-friendly version, where dozens of “motherfuckers”, “titties” and “niggers” are chopped into artful, stuttering, near-autistic imperatives. “Take Your Shirt Off” also reminds me that T-Pain is more than a computer filter; he’s an exciting, excessively talented songwriter. How cool is it that he counters Jay-Z’s DOA movement not with a dis track but with a tossed-off line in a song that renders the whole argument moot?
[8]
Alex Ostroff: A collection of solid pop moments that lack a unifying song. Points for: TWIST IT IN THE AIR LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING HELICOPTER! (2); Now answer this: Is Autotune really dead? (2); the harmonized AND Autotuned choral backing vocals (1); the outro, which cuts up “Teddy Pain” with beatboxing and or helicopter mimicry in the most amusing fashion possible (1).
[6]
Martin Skidmore: Back to his stripper references, but the autotune is mostly more restrained than his usual habit, and the tune has plenty of brash, punchy insistence and danceability.
[8]
Alex Macpherson: Good to know someone else was pissed off that “Lemme Get That” was pretty much the only track on the last Rihanna album that never got to be a single! T-Pain spruces up the collapsing-bookshelf rhythm and odd glottal ‘plosives with maximalist party-synth tangents, replaces Rihanna’s shoulder-padded hauteur with a healthy dose of rowdy high spirits, and hey presto! A textbook club jam which is sure to please street dance tutors the world over.
[9]
Ian Mathers: Tremendously crass in both form and content. Which could have been awesome, but there’s no verse or wit to the crassness.
[4]
weird that this slipped by with only 7 blurbs & no comments. doesn’t seem to be much bite commercially either. i heard a clip of this and thought it didn’t sound very t-pain at all, much too boisterous and confrontational. i’ve love damn near every one of his solo joints, but – echoing shipley – this seemed to miss the great melody & effervescently feel-good atmosphere of “buy u a drank” or “chopped n skrewed”
This reminds me of some of the bad wannabe ‘club-bangers’ that rappers who sucked at that sort of thing would put out back in, I don’t know, ’04, ’05. Very forced.