The Singles Jukebox

So long! It’s been a blast (blast).

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[7.61]Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Weed and booze meditations on a fizzled relationship, which feel like a warm and fuzzy cloud — a fitting title and sentiment to round out the Jukebox universe.
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Thomas Inskeep: The way this Afrobeats track rides a sample from Toni Braxton’s 2000 smash “He Wasn’t Man Enough” is so smart, I can hardly stand it. (Sure, it’s been used a few times before, but never as well as it is on “Last Last.”) Burna Boy himself is fine, but the track is the star.
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Brad Shoup: Breakups can make you manic, and it was all I could do to follow Burna Boy’s switchbacks. There’s a little fatalism, some victory lapping, a chorus that eyes the bar but doesn’t hit as well as the group vocal of the intro. Sampling “He Wasn’t Man Enough” is a great gag: the strum is as restless as Burna, but they kept Toni’s coos, hovering placidly over this mess, refusing to engage.
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Jessica Doyle: This is sweet, catchy but melancholy, and a song I never would have thought to listen to had it not been The Penultimate Song in the Blurber. (I never would have thought to listen to the first song in the blurber after I got my TSJ acceptance, either.) It takes a certain amount of energy to keep your mind open and your ear catholic, to not default to playing the same songs you find comfort in over and over and over, and the more opportunities you have to find new things the more energy it may take, and here I’m thinking of something I read recently: “What makes online life what it is (that is to say, a hellscape) is the constant and unprocessable realization that billions of other minds exist that go through everything we go through… the untold hundreds of thousands you will connect with online in your life makes real your own meaninglessness in the sea of others.” One of the great gifts of the Jukebox was its demand that its writers rise to the occasion and evince that energy: so while we did spend ungodly amounts of words on Fucking Drake and Fucking Taylor, we also considered Kyrgyz feminist swirls and banjo-strumming friars and gleefully contemptuous electropop and yeah almost a decade later I still don’t know what was going on here. We had to get out of our own heads, or at least admit that we were staying in our own heads. It’ll be harder to do that without the prompt of the Jukebox. But it seems to me that one of the great challenges of life is how things keep changing, nothing gold can stay, na everybody go chop breakfast; if you prefer, the great paradox articulated by Rabbi Simcha Bunam, that we are simultaneously beloved creations of G-d and dust and ashes, or by Octavia Butler, that that G-d is both change and changeable. One confronts one’s own meaninglessness and makes meaning anyway. Listening to a pop song you might not have heard otherwise is nothing. Listening to a pop song you might not have heard otherwise is love. Bye, Jukebox. Hello, friends. Let’s not stop. I love y’all.
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Alex Ostroff: Burna Boy gets over a bad break-up by getting drunk and stoned with Toni Braxton stuck on repeat. Warm and melancholy and a little bit uplifting in the exact way that listening to “He Wasn’t Man Enough” after a break-up tends to be. As moving as the production is, and as compelling as some of his lines are, at the end of the day “Last Last” is a good song haunted by the ghost of a great one, endlessly looping Toni’s opening vocal riff without any of the strength or catharsis her original ultimately provides.
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Hannah Jocelyn: It’s hard to compete with Rodney Jerkins’ production on “He Wasn’t Man Enough,” but the five producers here do their best with an aggressively punchy drum kit and filtered strings, even as they occasionally threaten to drown out Burna Boy. Maybe it’s deliberate — the lyrics are petty and messy, alternating between “she manipulate my love” and “maybe in another life, you will be my wife”, which makes for an uncomfortable close listen. (But also makes it a better Drake song than any Drake song this year!) It’s on the hook where everything comes together, all the messiness coalescing into gang vocals shouting “I need igbo and shayo” in a hook big enough to unite crowds worldwide, pandemic be damned.
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Will Adams: The genius of the sample is not just drawing some Darkchild from the nostalgia well but how Burna Boy flips it to be a direct response to “He Wasn’t Man Enough”: “Why you say I did nothing for you / When I for do anything you want me to do,” he retorts, intensifying the drama. But despite it all — the drama, the disappointment, the bitter lump that settles in your stomach when you accept that something that’s been part of your life for so long has come to an end — he finds comfort in the chorus. “I need igbo and shayo,” goes the refrain, and while drowning oneself in substances isn’t a great coping mechanism, there’s a sense, from the choir of backing vocals around him, that he’s in good company, and while it might hurt now, he’ll be okay in the end. The key to this song’s greatness is convincing me that I’m gonna be okay, too. Onward into the unknown.
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Scott Mildenhall: Loud and clear, the opening chorus announces that while loss is collective, so is joy. “Last Last” would sound a lot more lonely were Burna Boy not joined by those massed ranks, all speaking as one, but all with their own stories to tell. While they may be dancing on blistered feet, they’re dancing together. And if that isn’t something to celebrate, what is?
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David Sheffieck: We haven’t had a Song of the Summer (TM) since 2019, when after a few years of questionable or middling or forgettable chart-toppers Lil Nas X proved it was still possible to hit all four quadrants. But every year has had at least one banger that could hold the title, and this time that dubious honor goes to “Last Last.” Heartbroken and dismissive, fatalist and hedonistic, it’s the song for the most fragmented pandemic summer yet. The way Burna Boy situates the titular hook in a refrain that’s only repeated as a late prechorus is audacious; the way the chorus vocals rise to envelop him is irresistible. That I haven’t been hearing “Last Last” every time I smelled charcoal or walked by a park this summer isn’t exactly surprising, but it also doesn’t seem right.
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Alex Clifton: If I heard this song anywhere else, I’d like it; I’d think it was catchy with an interesting choral hook. I might say “dope, awesome” and leave it at that. It stands out from the blur of pop I’ve heard this year and actually caught my attention, and I know I’ll be thinking about it for a while. But listening to this knowing it’s one of the last songs The Singles Jukebox will blurb makes it extra bittersweet. All things come to an end, whether they be something as simple as a movie or as long-running and complex as a relationship. It’s a hard thing to face. Even under a veneer of braggadocio, there’s no denying that it hurts. But songs like “Last Last” make me even more thankful for all that TSJ has given me: an insight into music from around the world I wouldn’t have heard otherwise, an environment to get creative with my own writing, an opportunity to write alongside folks I really respect and admire, and an audience who cared about what we had to say. It’s been a wonderfully unique experience, and I cannot stress how grateful I am to have played a small part in this site’s history. So I’m going to listen to this all year with a little lump in my throat, no matter how corny or dramatic that sounds, and think of you all whenever I hear it; I hope you think of us too.
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Nortey Dowuona: To the whole Singles Jukebox, to all my fellow Africans out there, to my Nigerian co-worker, thank you. Pls, Burna Boy’s voice is as luxurious as ever, even in full autotune.
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Oliver Maier: I love Burna Boy. I love the feeling in the way he sings, I love the texture of his voice, I love how the last syllables in every line pop and glisten. I love “He Wasn’t Man Enough” as well, and I think the sample works beautifully here. I love when pop music is good, because it’s like a party trick that you don’t get tired of.
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Ian Mathers: This is exactly the kind of song I’d usually wind up not blurbing; not because it’s bad, not because it’s good, but just because (often and especially after blurbing a bunch of other songs) I had trouble finding anything to say about it. The production is nice, Burna Boy is compelling and skillful over it, the massed vocals are a nice touch. But pretty much every song I’ve read about on The Singles Jukebox has featured some combination of people going deep on stuff I’ve never heard of before, cracking incredible jokes, pulling out heartfelt and personal reactions to songs, catching stuff I’ve missed, missing stuff I’ve caught, and just plain outwriting me. I hope on at least some songs I’ve been able to be the person doing one of those (or, if I’m lucky, all of them over the years) for someone. And I assure you that even my most mediocre or ill-conceived blurb was an attempt to keep up to that standard. Even when I’ve had the time and energy (I didn’t need to find the desire, that’s always there) to try and blurb everything, there was a song or two where the only things I could think to say felt like they wouldn’t meet the standard, and after a few frustrating attempts I’d just empty the text box and hit the “Go back” button. I’ll even miss getting to do that.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Breaking up in public as a pop star seems bad, and breaking up with another pop star in public seems worse still. “Last Last” captures the fullness of that experience. It’s an uncomfortable listen at times, mercurial and filled with passing ugly feelings, but it’s also beautiful on the pure level of melody and language, a collection of folklore and borrowed phrasings that come together into a song that stays ambiguous and uncertain to the end.
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Iris Xie: The Singles Jukebox is literally the best, and I love you so much. This song is basically a fitting goodbye: a sad, grooving banger, which basically sums up how I’ve felt about being in TSJ the past few years. A group of really wonderful, caring, considerate and super smart people who truly care about music criticism and good writing in a time when throw-away hot takes and stan cloutchasing has dominated so-called music writing. Say hi when you see us around on the other corners of the internet!
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Joshua Minsoo Kim: School started a couple weeks ago and one of my students told me that she went to her first concert over the summer — it was for her favorite artist, Burna Boy. I mentioned that I went to the Davido show earlier this year and then told her about the other Nigerian musicians coming to Chicago soon. It was a nice moment, and I can thank TSJ for it; this website fueled my love for international pop music like nothing else, and has helped me remain curious about art and the world around me. I’ve fallen in love with so many things in my time here — the act of writing and listening, the intercultural and intergenerational dialogues inherent in music, my analytical and emotional sides. I get all of that here, from a track whose Toni Braxton sample is a clever foundation for a post-breakup song that’s as mournful as it is celebratory. All good things end that way.
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Alfred Soto: Undulating with confidence, lingering not a bit, “Last Last” is the ideal club banger.
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John Seroff: Burna Boy’s most recent album is a nearly unmitigated joy (red-headed asterisk goes here) and “Last Last” is likely the best track on there. Burna treats the core engine of “Last,” a chugging and pinging upcycled Braxton classic, as a flashy obstacle course that he dodges through with personality and energy enough for two. If this is the final track for this incarnation of the Singles Jukebox, it’s worth remembering that “Last” doesn’t have to mean the end. It can mean that we keep, that we stay beyond expectations. See you at the next finish line.
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