Hey you I see you! With your phone! Looking at The Singles Jukebox!
[Video][Website]
[4.17]
Will Adams: An effervescent RnBass would-be banger, utterly ruined by its “phones but too much” message.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Condemning an unchangeable phenomenon of modern life with melodies, lyrics, and vocal processing that sound like someone fooled around on a phone and — presto! — this emerged. Coincidence?
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: The older I get, the worse my social anxiety becomes, and thus the more time I spend looking at my phone. It’s the least worst option: When one is visibly not at ease anywhere, looking at one’s phone is an activity that’s socially camouflaging if not quite socially acceptable, like how extras on a stage will pretend to hold background chatter; and it’s a portal to somewhere your presence may actually be desired. The scolding for it, from culture and pop culture and songs like this, just makes matters worse. But make no mistake: “Phone Down” would still sound garish and awful as nonsense syllables.
[1]
Scott Mildenhall: If ever a lyric deserved to become a cultural catchphrase, it was this. All and sundry have expended dictionaries-worth of words on The Scourge of The Reflektor, but little has got to the heart of the issue in a way which will be as widely agreed on as “put your phone down, down, down — baby you can do that later.” What’s more, the song isn’t content to rely on it, throwing in an agitated bridge from Stefflon Don and a gear-change from Lil Baby that heighten the sense that this is not only a vignette of two relationships, but also a public service announcement, and perhaps Stefflon Don’s pitch to be the new Green Cross Code Man.
[8]
Crystal Leww: Sonically, this owes something to Nicki Minaj’s Barbie days — specifically “Check It Out,” which no one wants to talk about anymore. But Stefflon Don is no Nicki and somehow Lil Baby manages not a single bit of the personality that he had in a few “wahs” and exudes none of the attitude that will.i.am somehow managed in spades. The beat is fun though, I guess.
[5]
Alex Clifton: This actually grew on me by the end as the music gets interesting instead of just staying the robotic Auto-Tuned 2010 nightmare I assumed this would be. That doesn’t make it good, though.
[4]