Starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin!

[Video][Website]
[6.75]

Hazel Robinson: Oh, Example — in January I was still listening to “Won’t Go Quietly” at least ten times a week and really fancied him. Then he went somewhat boring and the whole “gay crisps” debacle took place, leading to me being both disappointed and more than a little angry. The things I liked, which were completely naff lyrics delivered at the breakneck speed of a bouncing pop song, made to feel more like minutiae and the mania of crushes than stupidity, have been superseded by a need to make Big Club Announcements over Big Portentous Beats and all that was charming became obnoxious. I thought this had got it together again for a bit (or well, he didn’t have a shirt on at the start of the video) but he has a knack of throwing in some spoke-bending phrase like all those things you said you don’t like were getting me high as a kite that, in this new Srs Exmple stuff just sounds ludicrous. The rap in the middle is also, unfortunately, risible Gah. That said, lovely Daft Punk synths.
[7]

Iain Mew: I love the contrast between the dour disaffect of Example’s voice and the playful urgency that the strings and bleeps are cooking up behind him. Between that and the amazing stuck cassette effect bits, it constantly seems like there’s a struggle for power going on just under the surface. All the twists and turns of the song take on an extra fascination as a result. Eventually he talks about looking at the mirror and being “not quite sure it’s me” and it feels like a confirmation of the disconnection that has been written large.
[8]

Erick Bieritz: Example wisely limits his own rapping to a cameo late in the song and keeps the inevitable dub warble from sounding too conspicuous. In all the effort reins in a lot of what kept “Kickstarts” from working, and by the time he’s rapping about skeletons and pointy sticks the song’s clunky yet winning hook has already sunk in.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Example is a man of dichotomies: the semi-singer and the rapper, the runner and the guy who can only jog so he can time his footfalls to the dubstep drops, the one/fun/gun rhymer and the sherbet/skeleton/serpent lyricist of hammerspace. Thanks to the production, it coheres more than you’d imagine, but if his identity doesn’t firm up one single from now he’ll need to change his moniker to Examples.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The tension between the wistful chorus and the dubstep histrionics burbling beneath is as inexorable as the Bernard Herrmann-esque string part whistling beneath this superstructure. Also, our boy handles singing and rapping with more finesse and injects more emotion than a certain Canadian superstar who’ll debut big on this week’s American albums chart. I’m not sure why he couldn’t convince Nicki Minaj to contribute a scene-stealing verse.
[6]

Brad Shoup: If nothing else, it’s fantastic to have the harsh music of construction and manufacturing represented in pop songs about relationships. It can’t be a coincidence that dubstep is eclipsing chiptune; play cedes to work, worry takes over for nostalgia. 
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: I like the echoes of pristine 80s movie-synthpop (cf. the Drive soundtrack) more than the middle-eight rap, the self-conscious vocals, or the — God forfend — dubstep breakdown. But he makes it all work regardless, something I’m surprised to find myself admitting.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: I’m feeling this. Example’s voice is actually pretty effective at channeling the bluer emotional registers because of how miserable he sounds even above standard-issue but entertaining bosh.  “Midnight Run” actually has enough twists and turns to surprise, though. He’s old enough to remember the feeling an 8-bit sound chip could wring out of basic hardware and clever enough to use those sounds to similar ends 25 years after the fact, too. Clumsy as they are on paper, these are still the most interesting, evocative lyrics he’s written as well. If every second single of his is going to be this intriguing I might have to check out the album after all.
[9]