The team-up the fans demanded!
[Video][Website]
[4.56]
Anthony Easton: Sky Ferreira’s considerable charm comes from a voice that seems to be on the edge of being flat, and that flatness seeming to be a deliberate choice. This is a good example of that.
[6]
Cédric Le Merrer: G-Dragon’s schtick might have worked better with a more involved foe (in fact, it does! — at least a little bit) but Sky Ferreira’s phoned-in chorus makes the “everything is embarrassing” puns hard to avoid. If your “good girl” sounds neither attracted nor scared, your “bad boy” ends up looking like an ass. Also: this beat is incredibly meh.
[3]
Crystal Leww: This is pleasantly chill, but nothing separates this in a particularly positive way from the latest string of rapper/singer collabs that have hit the pop charts again. Both artists “do their job”, but this is just okay.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: Asian pop stars have been trying to break into the Western marketplace by teaming up with big names since Pink Lady met Jeff. What’s incredible is how this strategy is still embraced despite failing failing over and over again (while the most successful Asian pop single ever galloped into the world’s heart despite not even trying to appeal outside of South Korea). G-Dragon would appear to be hipper than most this album cycle around, teaming up with names like Diplo, Boys Noize and Missy Elliot. Cooler than Snoop and Nick Cannon, right? Unfortunately, their is a test case for this too – J-Pop megastar Hikaru Utada worked with Timbaland, Pharrell and Ne-Yo last decade in a bid at American success…and flopped. Simply teaming up with a famous name doesn’t guarantee success, especially when the end result sounds blots out everything that makes the artist great in the first place. “Black” highlights none of G-Dragon’s best aspects, trading in his usual high-energy manicness in favor of a glorified ballad running on fumes. It features Sky Ferreira on the hook, but her additions feel phoned in and could have come from anyone. It’s boring, which is everything G-Dragon isn’t when he’s being himself. Maybe he should try embracing that before trying to capitalize on another person’s cool.
[3]
Iain Mew: I like the Sky Ferreira version much better than the Jennie Kim one. Ferreira’s vocals are technically weaker, but the way she really forces each word out and still sounds blank means that there’s no respite from the numbness of G-Dragon’s navel-gazing. That unrelenting working away at a mood is the best thing it has going for it.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: As coolly evocative as Sky Ferreira’s voice is, I’m a little disappointed to hear G-Dragon chasing after the hipster atmospherics of the current moment in US indie pop. Not that he should be spinning his wheels on bright, trancey crayon-pop forever, but he’s not so great a rapper that he can overcome the track’s draggy inertia.
[5]
Alfred Soto: So damn tiresome for an up-and-comer to indenture herself to projecting sensitivity for a wannabe who thinks “Dilemma” is Gaye-Terrell.
[3]
Brad Shoup: What a soft track. Even Ferreira’s pronunciation is losing its integrity.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Sky Ferreira makes a much better Tracey Thorn than Jennie Kim (and Tracey makes a better one than both, but I mean.) Why is G-Dragon doing a Tracey Thorn track?
[6]