We’re on a roll with the song-titles-doubling-as-blurb today!
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[3.50]
Alfred Soto: After a surprise #1 album, the white rapper has a bigger audience to which he can direct soap opera angst like “Let You Down.” It never occurs to these dudes that situations as ominous as avoiding the dad who never loved them demand jokes.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Yeah, I know, *feelings* are complicated, but this guy’s are just an incoherent mess of passive aggression, blame-shifting and then what sounds like… regret… or something like it at the end. His Macklemore-esque syllable blurs leading into quick rhyming triples oddly reminiscent of Mike Shinoda (was NF also feeling like he was part of her property?) suggest a technically skilled mimic rather than anything else. The booming drums suggest someone involved knows a good idea. The sensitive ballad piano and NF’s plaintive wail when he takes over the chorus suggest the opposite though.
[4]
Iain Mew: It’s like Professor Green with the catharsis sanitised away, further aided by NF taking an accessibility-first Macklemore approach to flow which fits uneasily at best with the subject matter. It’s not so surprising to see it in the UK top 40 without the need for much in the way of promotion here.
[2]
Nortey Dowuona: Thick, plodding piano, stuffy bass, why is NF a thing… oh wait: the fast, clear drums are pretty good.
[5]
Josh Langhoff: Wack Christian Eminem renounces metaphor and zeroes in on passive aggression, improbably making me miss emo Em’s attempts at wordplay. Guess that’s why they call it bread and whine.
[0]
Anjy Ou: With NF’s rapid fire flow and the mournful piano running in the background, it would be easy to dismiss this as simply another attempt to take Eminem’s place in the rap canon as the “emo rapper.” But there’s a different spirit to this track. Eminem often seemed to voice his anger as a way to avoid confronting his true feelings. NF raps so that he understand and accept them, and make peace with past hurts. It plays like a journal entry, or a long letter never sent — not written when the pain is still fresh, but when it has finally dulled enough that you can unclench your fist and try to let it go. Reaching the end of the track feels like a long sigh that empties your lungs, but makes space for a breath of clean air.
[7]