a.k.a. sexytime with Big Sean…
[Video][Website]
[4.50]
Alex Ostroff: “Lay It On Me” is catchy, no doubt. The beat feels like a distant cousin to the music box glory of Gyptian’s “Hold Yuh“, but with none of its sweetness. However, it suffers by dint of following one of 2011’s best singles. “Motivation” exuded pure desire; here, Kelly’s supposed certainty that the sex will be worth contorting her schedule and body is unconvincing at best. It doesn’t help that the man she’s pleading to stay until the morning is Big Sean, whose idea of sweet talk is “skinny dipping in [the] pool … between your legs,” and who seems focused on sex as a display of his own prowess — a stark contrast to Wayne’s single-minded fixation on pleasing her. It’s a pleasant enough way to spend four minutes, but ultimately as unsatisfying as sleeping with Big Sean instead of Lil’ Wayne would likely be.
[5]
Erick Bieritz: The quality of Kelly Rowland’s work has always fluctuated depending on who she was collaborating with, and the singularly awful Sean “call my dick curiosity” Anderson is not what “Lay It On Me” needed. Rowland remade her career as a Europop diva, but now she’s lurching back toward the rap/R&B charts. And this pairing seems arbitrary and perhaps marketing-based at best. Not that it’s so unusual for a 30-year-old to ask a 23-year-old to lay it on her, but advising him to tell his “little friends” that he’s rolling solo provides some vague cradle-robbing creepiness.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: Another second-rate Rihanna song, this one with a second-rate version of an imaginary good rapper located exactly at the interstice of Drake and Lil Wayne. (Big Sean, learn to keep to the beat. Points for the “curiosity killed the cat” joke, though.) Kelly Rowland’s never sounded so anonymous or bored.
[4]
Ian Mathers: For a while there, Kelly’s music was getting better as it got more anonymous, but I think we’ve hit that tipping point. Even more so than “Motivation,” “Lay It on Me” could be by just about anyone, but for the first time I can actually think of Kelly Rowland songs that I’d rather listen to than this one (that Freemasons remix of “Work,” “Like This,” “Motivation”). But that just means that “Lay It On Me” is solidly enjoyable radio/club fare, and there’s not actually enough of that. Credit too to Big Sean for verses that, well, I haven’t done any close reading, but they at least seem less douchey than the standard model.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Kelly Rowland’s Here I Am is where all the radio-friendly tracks off 4 fled to, a landing bin full of un-eclectic RedOne tracks, Lil Wayne cameos and this bit of summersploitation. “Lay It On Me” clangs along instead of seducing, secure enough in its piano and its groove and its alto that the laying on of lust and limbs sounds like a non-issue. Meanwhile, Big Sean has yet to justify his sudden ubiquity.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Only one detail really sticks: when Rowland orders her boy to “tell your little friends you’re riding solo”. Deliciously dismissive. The bass rumbles menacingly for stretches, but with a track this lightweight I can’t imagine much more is at stake than who’s gonna be the big spoon. Does the industry know that you can actually have a singer duet with another singer?
[3]
Alfred Soto: Not even aggressively rote, just rotely rote. But I’ll give Rowland points for at last sounding like someone — Mary J. Blige in this case — instead of sounding like nothing at all.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Big Sean? Really? Did Nelly stop returning your calls, Kelly?
[4]
Jer Fairall: This wouldn’t have been any less of a forgettable little trifle a decade ago, but at least it would have been left to little more than the decent piano hook and Kelly’s flavourless vocals. This is 2011, though, so everything gets slathered in a bank of oppressive Euro-synths, making the charisma-deprived chasm between Kelly and Sean feel even greater than it already does.
[4]
Michaela Drapes: It’s an epic battle between the classy and the sleazy, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Did Big Sean’s verses get smeared in from some dirtier song somewhere? Because they just don’t fit with Kelly’s dip into earthier ventures after her recent turn as an untouchable queen of the dancefloor. (I preferred her as the latter, and hoped she’d stick with it; needless to say the blandly generic Here I Am was a major disappointment for me.) She can certainly sing, so at least her bits are pleasing to the ear — if you don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics. If you do, that’s another story entirely: There’s something really undignified and ill-fitting about this level of half-hearted lustiness from an otherwise dignified lady.
[4]