But Brad, wasn’t it great when The Edge rapped — on “Numb”?
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[3.64]
Patrick St. Michel: No, say something interesting!
[1]
Anthony Easton: Is this supposed to make me feel inspired? I don’t feel inspired.
[2]
Will Adams: First Hedley, now this. There seems to be some memorandum going around to men informing them that telling women to shut up is charming. Can someone forward it to me, please?
[2]
Michaela Drapes: Oh, do I love a good co-dependency anthem! Example’s a better, er, rapper than other guys who sing and do Rex Harrison vamps over bridges, and maybe that’s why I can’t help but find this appealing. His flow is awful, but self-consciously so. And dammit if he doesn’t also get to that Songs from the West Coast-era Elton John place so perfectly, too.
[7]
Iain Mew: Once again an Example lead single has him resigned to his relationship failing, but this time he’s taken his powers of perception a step further and doesn’t even need a kiss to get all doom and gloom; just the eyes. Beyond that he doesn’t really have anything new to say, though. He aims for noble selflessness and misses, but not in an interesting way. Worse, it just all sounds a bit soggy.
[3]
Brad Shoup: The set of rappers who can stretch “million” into component syllables is vanishingly finite, and does not contain Example. I suppose I am pretty grateful that Bono never attempted rapping, now that I think about it.
[3]
Pete Baran: For someone who self defines as a rapper (c.f. “You Can’t Rap”) Example seems remarkably untrustworthy of words. In “Changed The Way You Kiss Me” his relationship insight was tactile. Here he doesn’t even want his significant other to talk. The words he uses as well flounder on cliché, and whilst it is good he sings the guest rap on his own record, it is uninspired, limp, and also feels tagged on. Which leaves us with the music, which is one part Europop, one part Unforgettable Fire–era U2.
[3]
Alfred Soto: I’m not sure the world needs an electro Coldplay-U2 but it’s not badly sung.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: “Hey, remember Simple Minds? How about we do that, only with, like, whatever the sound of 2012 is?”
[3]
Colin Small: It would be too anthemic for its own good if it weren’t the only pop song in recent memory with a well-earned chorus and honest-to-goodness bridge.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: Oh, Example, you’ve pieced together a backing track with very real pretensions towards being anthemic, and then you ruin it by being all mopey. Can someone check the credits for Chris Martin’s involvement?
[5]