Hello, Big Sean. I want to play a game…
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[5.22]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Ashley” is not a terrific song — Million $ Mano’s arena-boom-bap fills every corner of the room without ever capturing an interesting melody, Miguel spreads himself thin on the hook (maybe Mariah was right on snipping his f-bombs from “#Beautiful”) and Big Sean is monosyllabic when the subject matter calls on emotion. But Big Sean is getting better, guys! “Ashley” feels like an evolutionary step from, let’s say, the similarly-themed “Sellin’ Dreams” from 2012. He used to bumble through gloss and force his way to pathos, but now he’s finding it easier. He’s a little focus, a little heart, a little heartlessness. He’s making actual songs now.
[6]
Jer Fairall: A charismatic presence if not much else, Sean is too spry for this Drake-ian mope to sound like anything but play-acting. Miguel, equally mismatched with a big, maudlin hook, just sounds strained.
[4]
Alfred Soto: I was hoping Miguel would avoid being go-to soul man for okay hip hop stars, and his pleading strains his neck muscles. Big Sean ain’t doin’ shit though.
[4]
Anthony Easton: The class anxiety might be one of the best explanations of how the culture of excess works in hip-hop. The sentimental sung chorus aches with enough realness that it slides comfortably back into well crafted artifice.
[8]
Will Adams: It’s astonishing to hear Miguel sound so colorless here. Then again, with the bland, “we made it” rap and greyscale production, it’s not.
[4]
Megan Harrington: I want to throw the spotlight on Big Sean’s delivery of “Ironically / Those were the times I felt the richest.” The track opens with his arms stretched far apart to demonstrate the difference between “started from” and “now here” and just as it’s beginning to feel heavy handed he delivers that line in a soft voice somewhere between sincere and stoner philosopher. “Ashley” is a familiar story, but instead of naming it “Lucky” or “My Girl” and resting on genre, Big Sean’s bars are specific enough to sound like memories.
[8]
Brad Shoup: Getting wistful over a screwed “Heavy Metal Drummer,” Miguel and Big Sheezy know they just have to let the bass to do the heavy lifting. I’m fine with that, but Sean startles with a second verse crammed with the closest thing to admission hip-hop will allow. It’s really sad! But not as sad as whatever’s happening to Ashley right now.
[8]
Jonathan Bradley: Miguel pours his deep reserves of talent into a watery soft rock hook over keys even more diluted. Big Sean spreads his substantially more-limited abilities into a B.o.B-reminiscent pop-rap smear. It’s an approach to MCing that sees the rapper adopt the second person address natural to rock ‘n’ roll frontmen, which would be a permissible innovation if it didn’t involve also adopting rock ‘n’ roll’s predilection for blandishments and insincerity. Those elisions work on songs with big riffs and few words; rappers, with their comparatively dense delivery, end up sounding like they’re both pandering and oversharing. Basically: pop-rock is stylized enough that its words don’t sound like literal conversations, but rap’s verbosity makes songs like this one sound like letters penned only for an audience of one. It’s not that it never works, but if you wanna make the song cry, you gotta make the song cry. Otherwise you end up trying to wring meaning from Champ de Mars vomit sessions when all you really want is to rhyme “Paris” and “embarrass.”
[2]
Josh Langhoff: Hey! Big Sean means well, but he still utters dickish lines like, “I know it’s been weird since I went out west and did an album with No I.D.” Somewhere Ashley’s like, “Never change, dude.” Miguel does his job with a tense intimation of passion; he’s waving his hands and backing out of the room.
[3]