Look, we admit it. Bruno Mars ran over our cat. That’s why we hate him so much.
[Video][Website]
[2.73]
Jonathan Bradley: Fuck outta here with this bullshit. This is the result of the long-awaited Em and Royce reunion: the beef squashed, two old friends grown up and working together again, their differences put aside? This spent spunk, used-jimmie, closing credits dribble of a Pacman-plinking stadium anthem? Go listen to the original “Bad Meets Evil” from The Slim Shady LP, where the pair bounces off each other with an irrepressible and inventive joy derived solely from the art of rapping: their ability to conjure the most marvellously pungent ideas with nothing more than their vocal chords and vocabularies. Listen to the duo on Royce’s “Rock City“; Marshall Mathers at the peak of his Slim Shady fame putting on his pal with a Dre beat palpably too clean for Nickel Nine, who nonetheless benefited from the structure his raw talent has wanted for ever since. And now return to “Lighters,” and hear Em rap on beat only by accident, hear Royce spit like he’s afraid Hayley Williams is going to tap on the studio door and inform him his session is over, hear Bruno Mars — who I actually like — sing a horrible hook for a pair that needs Detroit grime, not placeless pap. The only possible excuse for recording this is if Royce needed to buy health insurance. Bad Meets Blue Cross Blue Shield.
[1]
Michaela Drapes: This could have been really, really nice, Em and Royce reunited. But with that wet blanket Bruno Mars along for the ride, it’s actually kind of like torture. Who knew the kids would be nostalgic for raising lighters at arena shows already? Isn’t there an app for that?
[3]
Hazel Robinson: “A sky full of lighters” –? For fuck’s sake. What is this? I really like the mix of aggression over/under the bubbly, inspirational anthem-type synths in the verses but Bruno Mars is even more rage-inducingly anodyne than usual on the chorus and no one seems to know what’s going on or that the pieces would eventually be put together, like a dysfunctional mashup. Puzzling and kind of awful.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: If the sky accumulates enough lighters, would they ignite the oxygen in the atmosphere and bring on the apocalypse, thus solving the problem of future records credited to the one-two punchline of Bad Meets Evil ft. Bruno Mars?
[3]
Edward Okulicz: That Eminem is now releasing bad records isn’t a surprise. What is a surprise is that he is now releasing them so frequently and with such enthusiasm. Bruno Mars’ chorus isn’t even the worst bit! Em and Royce can bounce off each other all they like but what they’re doing over the top of this beat is anyone’s guess; all the parts of this track could have been randomly patched together for all we know.
[2]
Al Shipley: Bad Meets Evil meets cuddly is a strange combination, but I guess they need a power ballad to sell a project that’s 50% from one of those guys from Slaughterhouse who’s otherwise radio poison. Sadly this would probably hold together better if it was all Smeezingtons sappiness.
[3]
Andy Hutchins: Royce Da 5’9″ and The Smeezingtons: A marriage made in desperation, and not on the Smeezes’ part. Forget that Eminem is on this song, dropping about a dozen variations of fuck, shit, cock, prick, and bitch over what sounds like the lost B-side to Five For Fighting’s “Superman (It’s Not Easy)”; Nickel, a guy who has as many enviable gears as any rapper working, is spitting pablum like “Every hour happy hour now, life is wacky now” in the midst of promises to kill for Em and talk about his dad’s bad back. There’s little wit here, just veiled rage from an Em fully in “Forever” mode and the occasional bad joke from Royce, and then “Lighters” tries to pass off Bruno Mars as the kind of guy who knows what it’s like “to be kicked down, forced to fight.” Feel-good music for people who can’t otherwise figure out when to throw lighters up and will be hoisting iPhones anyway. But it’s a hit.
[4]
Alex Ostroff: This song features (a) a chorus sung by Bruno Mars and (b) is about musicians relying on audience adulation to justify their oversized egos, so Em and Royce have a lot of work to do to make ‘Lighters’ remotely tolerable. The production is atmospheric and moody, but notably infused with more positivity than one would expect. Em spits some impressive strings of internal rhymes, even for him, but he exhibits just as many awkward moments where he sounds out of breath or forces more syllables into a rhyme scheme than naturally fit, which is a dealbreaker when all you have left going for you is your technique. Royce’s verse fits the tone of the track better – in contrast to the bitterness we’ve come to expect from Eminem, he’s expressing fairly genuine gratitude, regret and joy. Shockingly better than expected, but the song suffers from being torn between motivational feel-good-isms and vitriol.
[3]
Zach Lyon: Sounds as if Bad Meets Evil has actually been an established Top 40 duo for a decade and we’re just jumping straight into the segment of their Behind the Music where they’re trying to recreate “Airplanes” with Bruno Mars. The talking heads would say things like, “Nothing can kill them now.” It’ll only get worse from here and we’ll spend the rest of their partnership experiencing phantom pains for a masterpiece 2003 album that doesn’t exist.
[2]
Pete Baran: The set-up for this track suggests that Bad may be meeting Evil, but Bruno Mars is much much worse than either. And so, in many ways, it turns out. The lighter motif for the intro and chorus looks like Eminem is looking for another Stan style ballad rap, but the two parts of the songs barely gel. Three parts really, as while Eminem and Royce have always had a nicely complimentary rapping style the fact that their parts in no-way combine wastes their chemistry. As for Bruno, expect lighters, but also expect to be chased out of town with pitchforks too.
[3]
Anthony Easton: When can we stop reviewing Bruno Mars?
[2]