Hello and welcome to TSJ: Tombé, Sauté, Jeté…

[Video]
[7.17]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Well this is an odd clusterfuck, isn’t it? Undoubtedly one of the French hits of the summer, “Petrouchka” (no relation to Stravinsky’s Petrushka) finds two rappers curiously interpolating Ivan Petrovitch Larionov’s 1860 Russian folklore hit “Kalinka.” And while it’s easy to mistake “Kalinka” for the name of a woman, the original is actually an ode to a particular type of Russian berry, supposedly written in a capture-the-zeitgeist way that spoke at once to sadness and playfulness in the 19th century. (If only I were Russian and of a particular generation to be able to verify this.) Inspired by Marseille beating Paris Saint Germain at Parc des Princes, Soso Maness — one of the Algerian-Marseillais rappers from the smash “Bande Organisé” which took over the French charts for 11 consecutive weeks last year — decided to hop on a track with French-Polish rapper PLK to celebrate. Which is all to say: “Petrouchka,” whose lyrics are all about selling drugs, having fancy cars, and drinking vodka, sounds exactly like a French club track that would hype up crowds at a soccer stadium, all while respecting the cadence of a century-old Russian hit about berries. It somehow sounds completely natural, while also like a spasmodic, incoherent mess — but one with an undeniable joie de vivre, non?
[8]

Ian Mathers: Did I know I wanted French rap that makes me feel like I should be doing a Hopak (were I still limber enough)? I did not. That’s just one of the nice surprises pop music can give you.
[7]

Michael Hong: It seems counterintuitive, the way the hook lands right where the momentum drops, but “Petrouchka” uses the split to create an immersive experience. As the pair egg each other on, they lighten the production while gradually building back the tempo, until you find yourself chanting with them, once again wholly engrossed in the center of their dance-rap.
[7]

Mark Sinker: Petrushka — a Bakhtinian mash-up of Pierrot-Harlequin follies with Punch-and-Judy darkness, set at a rural fair, and in the end the puppeteer also gets it — is my favourite Stravinsky bcz it was also my first: a late ’60s xmas or bday present from mum and dad of the 1947 Antal Doráti reading, which I played a LOT as a teenager! It’s a carnival-riot of overlapping tunes! The only tune here is not one of them! Instead it’s the chorus of “Kalinka”, which is like being slapped in the face by a semiotician screaming “what does Russia mean to you?” — and the theme instead is that everything is forever theatre, soldiers and politicians and gangsters and rappers and ballet-dancers and you, all just puppets in fantastic masks and costumes, Scarface in Narnia, the play’s the thing, it all just blurs in. There is a raspberry in the garden, my raspberry! Oh you! Beauty, soul maiden!
[8]

Harlan Talib Ockey: Stravinsky’s Petrushka is some Certified Weird Shit about puppets, so it’s a little disappointing that this is just pedestrian Scarface posturing. The hook is, objectively, a banger — just listen to those bass hits — but it’s still odd that Maness and producer Junior Alaprod chose not to dig any further into the subject matter than random shoutouts to vodka and Putin. Maness and PLK’s flows aren’t particularly distinctive, but there’s some impressive quick-fire assonance and internal rhyme in here that bounces deftly off the production. Fine, have a decent score. Make sure we get the puppets next time, though.
[6]

Tim de Reuse: The tempo cratering at the beginning of every chorus lends a strange menace to what would otherwise be a lazy, sparse hook; the tongue-twister that PLK rattles off at the end of his verse manages to shock a little life into what would otherwise be dull braggadocio. It’s silly, but it’s the best possible version of itself.
[7]

Who’s up for some metal?

[Video]
[4.67]John Pinto: WWE 2K14 Character Creator load screen music, but executed with such clear intent and sincerity that you have to give them credit for it.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Aspiring to the wonderful, overblown heights of Metallica’s self-titled 1992 album is something most hard rock bands should get over themselves and try at least once. This isn’t doing it, though it certainly scales the heights of, say, Daughtry covering “The Unforgiven II.”
[5]

Ian Mathers: Okay, I’m not super knowledgable about Metallica, but it feels like I want to blame “Until It Sleeps” for what’s happening here. But at least that still felt closer to metal than the hunger dunger dang shit on display here.
[2]

Andrew Karpan: Stadium-bar-band takes on various modes of glam metal’s more melodic efforts; the record moves from one to the other with a diligence that’s almost mesmerizing, if largely uninspiring. To wit, while none of the lyrics benefit from being written down and read quietly, singer Ivan Moody nonetheless makes at least half of them sound strange, panicked and real.
[4]

Jeffrey Brister: It’s a somewhat toothless and schmaltzy metalcore tune, but it’s the right kind of corny. The drums hit just right, the chorus vamps and growls in all of the correct ways. It’s a pleasurable listening experience if you’re on its wavelength. It feels practically tailor-made to play over the end credits of an overly yellow action movie from the mid-’00s, the kind of song that gets me jumping around in my room, and listening on my headphones later as I write stories about my own gritted teeth superheroes.
[7]

Iain Mew: A trudge over well-trodden ground, improved by making that weary familiarity part of the point: darkness as an old friend.
[5]

*Tony Soprano voice* There is no Swedish House Mafia…

[Video]
[5.14]

Oliver Maier: Clearly modelled after the Weeknd in structure and scope, there are at least moments here — such as the hook, on which 070 Shake is excellent — that evoke the delirious, discomfiting nightscapes of more vivid artists like Neon Indian. Let down primarily by the aimless verses, on which Ty Dolla $ign is characteristically nothing, and the momentum stalls too hard.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: I enjoy the hazy vibes of the song, but the verses and the chopped-up post-chorus seem to be random sections they added after, as if they suddenly remembered they needed more than a chorus to make a song. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: Chopping the hook into cracker-ready morsels makes mishearing a requirement. Do they sing “in the lifeline” at one point? Paging Tony Hadley.
[4]

Mark Sinker: A neat way to make this song more (or possibly less) sinister is to mishear every relevant couplet as “Watching the guideline! Don’t change the guideline!”
[5]

Andrew Karpan: Largely forgettable and workmanlike stuff, if not for the brief moments of intense scatting from 070 Shake, a catchy advertisement of range that’s still on my mind, just like the best jingles.
[4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Ty Dolla $ign has a magnificent voice, resonant enough to make even very silly vocal lines seem important and expensive. Unfortunately, it’s wasted effort here — Swedish House Mafia’s production is loud without having any distinguishable characteristics, and, even disregarding the atrocious vocal chop, 070 Shake cannot hang whatsoever. It’s the kind of song that would be best used soundtracking the trailer to a very bad sci-fi MMORPG.
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: A rippling synth, which leads in thundering drums and loping bass, nearly topples the song before it begins, with 070 Shake smashed against the walls and melting into the shivering, whirligig synths. Ty’s warm hum centers and slows the song with it’s buttery color, but as 070 Shake tries to wriggle out, Ty steps in and pulls her from the cracks, allowing her to reassemble herself, with 070 Shake connecting all the disparate synths, the loping bass and thundering drums together. This careful contraction is built by the Swedish trio, who seem to have returned unbothered and ready. “Don’t You Worry, Child” was a perfect way out, now the rippling synth strums placed at the end feel like a proud door kick that has brought them back to us.
[8]

Oh, we did.

[Video]
[2.78]

Thomas Inskeep: Why so glum, chum?
[2]

Andrew Karpan: A sort of absurd performance of self-pity, the length the record goes to find the outer limits of bitterness only reveals how repetitive and unsatisfying the feeling really is. Fittingly drifty and minimal at every end, loaded with backing vocals that slosh like waves from a grey ocean that will never end, this makes the song an educational experience, if not a satisfying one, committing to tape an evening of some truly bad vibes.
[2]

Oliver Maier: The mopey self-pity at the centre of Blake’s work is unchanged from a decade ago. The main issue is that he’s jettisoned the meticulousness that made for a worthwhile synthesis of form and content; there was, back then, in the stuttering drum loops and effects-laden vocals, the sense of a neurotic young man trying to rearrange and rewire his own brain to gain some kind of self-understanding. So when “Say What You Will” tries to probe similar insecurities through a tedious soul pantomime, it not only doesn’t land but actively grates. There is of course the unavoidable fact that it is tiresome to hear an incredibly rich and famous person pat himself on the back for pretending that he doesn’t care that some people don’t like him, but this would be expensive-sounding schlock regardless of the source.
[2]

Harlan Talib Ockey: I genuinely wasn’t sure if this song was meant sincerely until the Teddy Roosevelt quote popped up at the end of the music video. “Comparison is the thief of joy” is an important idea, but “Say What You Will” is so woefully underdeveloped that what should be self-acceptance just sounds like the narrator zoning out at 2 AM. The chorus never advances beyond the titular phrase, and the production never reaches relief or catharsis. It’s an effective showcase for Blake’s ethereal higher register, but not much else.
[3]

Juana Giaimo: I could never feel the emotions James Blake’s wakes up in other people, so you can imagine that hearing his weirdly trembling falsetto in the middle of a rather boring song didn’t make it for me.
[4]

Ian Mathers: Blake’s framed this as a song about acceptance and realization, but it sure feels like a howl of pain sometimes? Whether you think that vocal showcase near the end is lovely or showy, nothing about his really reads tonally like it jibes with the content of the lyrics. Which isn’t a criticism, necessarily; a lot of work can be done with that tension. It’s just that most of this one creeps along at a mumble, so that it’s only when he risks being ridiculous that it attains anything really interesting.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: There is a logical fallacy that immature boys and people who are bad at thinking use when arguing on the Internet about the worth of musicians, actors, sports stars that I like to call argumentum ab amicam, or argument from girlfriend. That is, because person X has an attractive girlfriend, he must be good. I may be commiting a logical fallacy of my own by wondering what on earth the wonderful Jameela Jamil sees in this man.
[0]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: Is James Blake simply not that great of a songwriter? He came to fame on the back of two popular singles, both covers. He does good production work, and some great guest spots, but his own material tends to come across as just substrate for his voice. The notes that hit here are clever arrangement moments — he really is a wonderful manipulator of his own voice — but I’m just not convinced there’s a whole lot of actual song here. It has both the staying power and structural integrity of an ice cream cake under the summer sun. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: It takes talent to assemble beats, well-behaved synth washes, and dolorous monotone into a a declaration of self-pity this one-dimensional. Some artists exist as sampling fodder for others (aka the Spandau Ballet Dictum). Here’s hoping Beyonce still sees hope in James Blake.
[1]

Our door’s definitely open for this one, boys.

[Video]
[7.25]

Alex Clifton: The only bad thing about this song is that this wasn’t released a couple months ago to become the official Song of the Summer 2021. It’s perfect — infectious, sunny, fun, never wearing out its welcome. I’m obsessed with how easily Bruno and Anderson’s voices glide over those strings, performing some impressive skate tricks of their own. It’s a glorious moment of pure happiness and one that will keep me smiling for the rest of the year.
[10]

Nortey Dowuona: Look, Bruno Mars needs to actually find his own style. Anderson. Paak does this retro 70s pop jam perfectly and sounds wonderful, his wispy, scratchy voice wriggling across the mix and binding it tightly and thoroughly. But Bruno’s over-rehearsed, inflexible voice just pushes the mix out and scatters the disparate instruments, only with Anderson bringing it back together patiently beneath him, only for Mars to scatter them again. At a point, Bruno needs to actually create a compelling aesthetic rather than doing a poorly put together version of Sinatra does Slave deep cuts and let Anderson create these warm, fuzzy 70’s style throwbacks alone — or at  least with a far deeper and more lithe vocalist than him.
[5]

Mark Sinker: Philly Soul hits a kind of sweet-spot deadzone in my music brain, where it’s somehow perfect enough and classic enough that I really don’t know what to say about it beyond naming it. The one element that stands out sideways here is how disco-girl skating is treated as a subject for a song: not as novelty cash-in for trashy passing fad (the likely approach in say 1976-77) but as a full-bodied invocation of the casual colour of the air and the feel of times (the approach here). And when I say novelty cash-in, what would have nixed it as a concept from any major player is concern about the integrity of smooth production-line branding. So in a funny way, far from being an anachronism, this pastiche gets at something that was already there on the dancefloor but not in any groove for several years.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: What Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk!” was for early ’80s R&B pastiche, Mars and Anderson .Paak’s Silk Sonic collaboration is, across two singles, for the ’70s. And it sounds gorgeous. The two sound great together, in perfect harmony in every way, really; I’ve not got a single negative thing to say about this.
[9]

Alfred Soto: The delight I hear in the voices isn’t cynical. If Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars thought, “Look at what we got away with!” it’s more a quiet disbelief that they did get away with it. The “it” is a Thom Bell pastiche so immersed in the period elements that it ceases being pastiche: it’s updated Philly soul by master magpies. Mars rolls and rides, floats and glides: the it’s-3 a.m.-on-cocaine rasp that often repelled me works here. I docked it a notch because I’d rather hear this sort of thing from Raphael Saadiq, only his singles ain’t getting on Y-100 and I wonder why. 
[6]

Andrew Karpan: The real keeper here is when Mr. Mars compares thee to a summer’s barbecue, a striking image that comes in the midst of a study of summer whose nostalgia is not so much its point as its very medium. It’s cynical to call it a past that was not actually lived but bought and professionally upholstered, but I don’t think the absence of authenticity is all that bad and, in fact, its absence is what makes it interesting, giving its gestures the very kind of theatrical grace they aim for. Floating, sliding and ultimately skating, listening to “Skate” was like waking up from a vivid dream with a strange smile, remembering nothing.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Yet another weightless, effortless wedding party banger from the only man who bothers, and a much better use of Bruno and .Paak’s collective experience and talent than the kind of meh “Leave the Door Open.” As a bit of radio confection, this kicks ass, and I am scoring it accordingly. If instead of being a pop song it was a figure ice skating routine, I would also score it highly. If it was one of those disciplines where they award points based on difficulty, I wouldn’t be so impressed, because these guys have repeatedly demonstrated that the elements of this could be done in their collective sleep. But it’s big fun and big grins from start to finish anyway.
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: My mom really likes this and who am I to disagree?
[6]

Earnestly ripping off “All Star” — yep, what a concept!

[Video]
[3.86]

Katherine St Asaph: I can’t believe it took this many years of memes for someone to finally earnestly rip off “All Star.” Unless it’s ripping off “Semi-Charmed Life.” What “Say So” lacks in subtlety, uncynical conception and an actual hook — you know, like the ones that made those songs remembered and, yes, beloved — it makes up for in cheer and goofy vibes. And I could use a little cheer myself, and we could all use some goofy vibes.
[7]

Katie Gill: Oh this is the most boring Maroon 5 shit imaginable. It’s got the same problem as “Astronaut in the Ocean” (as well as literally every other song developed for TikTok) of there only being 30 solid seconds of chorus repeated ad infinitum, sandwiching dull verses. But this one took away any fun or anything interesting that “Astronaut” had and instead replaced it with something just so aggressively middle of the road. All you need is a guest verse by a female rapper who’s much too good for this shit and Adam Levine will be breaking down Masked Wolf’s door.
[2]

Nortey Dowuona: The strange thing about the guitar lick that builds “Say So” is that it’s just that… a lick. It’s not a progression, it just hovers around the same strumming and notes, while Masked Wolf does the same thing, hovering around the same notes; his flow rigid but too flat to even create pleasure from the construction of his verses. And his hook just goes up and down, the things he talks about are so basic and surface level, and it even ends at the right time to be streamed. It’s all very strange.
[2]

Tim de Reuse: Not the worst mental health anthem I’ve heard over the course of the pandemic, but perhaps the least ambitious. When you’re “not okay,” Masked Wolf recommends you just, y’know, relax about it. As a message for a feel-good summer tune it’s fine, I guess, but the arrangement here is upbeat in such a claustrophobic way; his vocals never stop for more than a beat, it never rests on a single section for more than a few measures, everything’s produced crisp and in-your-face — too much, compressed into too short a runtime. It calls to mind the archetype of the so-cheery-you-hate-them coworker more than it does an arm around your shoulder.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Absolutely nothing old is new again, but “Say So” comes pre-packaged to give some pure turn-of-the-millennium thrills, sounding like any one of 99 crossover hits that could have come out in 1999. Falls a little into the uncanny valley for me as far as being a throwback jam, as Masked Wolf seems a bit too self-aware that he’s doing something that sounds like it will end up in a kids’ movie five years from now. There are worse fates, for this is too easily chopped into short, catchy bits to have any other uses.
[5]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: With little to really say, “Say So” squirms and skizzes with a mediocrity that can only be described as unambitious. 
[2]

Ian Mathers: He doesn’t wear a mask even once in the video.
[5]

Some titles make the “not a cover” joke a little beside the point…

[Video]
[6.71]

Tim de Reuse: You go in primed for Tracy Chapman, then you’re taunted by a meek bassline that, somewhat distractingly, follows the contours of “Electric Feel.” But when the song reveals its grand sonic plan, those comparisons become kind of useless. There’s a fine balance between prickly, percussive details and feathery ambience: the aggressively gated new-wave reverb on the snare drum versus the distant chords that glue the mix together, or the sharp vocal snippets that ornament Syd’s half-whispered vocals. You know exactly what kind of day the subjects of this song are having, and she’s barely got to describe it.
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: Icy-cool ’80s R&B (are those Linn drums?) in which Syd sings a love song to her girl, in her lovely upper register, complete with a Jesse Johnson-esque guitar solo.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: When Syd gets on her lover shit, she’s unstoppable. The soft crooning she does over these silky, velvet synths is vivid and gorgeous.
[7]

Oliver Maier: Would be a pleasant, placid bit of pop if not for the drums, which are too loud and hideously stiff. Syd is far from interesting enough to divert attention.
[3]

Alfred Soto: From screech-guitar and drum machine to quiet pained falsetto, the ’80s signifiers line up on cue. There isn’t a thing wrong with “Fast Car,” down to the way it isn’t fast at all, other than its studiousness. 
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Faster than that other “Fast Car,” but also much more clean. The song’s kind of like “Backseat” in how it sounds mostly like the idea of a car, not those bulky hulking things with metal and motor oil that leave noise and smoke in their wake. A guitar solo on the bridge tries to return things to the world of the tangible, its melody swerving like race-car wheels and skidding to a stop like brakes, but even this sounds too pristine. The song’s also kind of like “I Feel It Coming” in how it sounds way too blank for me and definitely too blank for the exciting exhibitionist fantasy that the lyrics want to be. Syd’s great at being chill and suggestive; this is just chill.
[6]

John Pinto: We’re going to lose something when the last cassette decked-out car hits the scrap yard. I’m not waxing nostalgic here about the actual cassette tape (which is its own thing) but the cassette-aux cord adapter. These are finicky little inventions, prone to distracting blasts of harsh noise if you drive over a bump or, y’know, do something in the front seat that bumps your car around a little too much. The modern automobile’s aux cord/Bluetooth setup is certainly an improvement in almost all aspects, but there’s no friction there, no delicious, contradictory need for caution. And it’s silly, but I think some songs, both “Fast Car”‘s included, probably sound better over the cassette-aux.
[8]

It’s “The Singles Jukebox”, Tyler. It says it at the top of the page…

[Video]
[7.67]

Al Varela: A perfect summer jam. Bright and sunny production that’s soulful, charming, and so full of life that it adequately soundtracks any summer occasion. Tyler and Youngboy’s dorky attempts at flirting are admittedly tragic, but I think the song knows it’s kinda desperate and stupid. It’s just trying to make the most of a beautiful day, hopped up on its infatuation and giving it unearned confidence that’s funny, yet still endearing. Wonderful little track.
[9]

Nortey Dowuona: An absolute delight. Bishop Burrell needs to come out of retirement.
[10]

Alfred Soto: Tyler won’t convince me he’s anything other than a mediocre rapper and a terrific producer, which means he makes records as solid as anybody’s. In his continuous effort to sand down the fangs shown a decade ago, he offers “WUSYANAME” as a valentine: he’ll take his fantasy boy to an indie film in Cannes (sure), to a disco in France (okay), anything to make the word flesh. The H-Town sample ties him to a hip-hop past in which he once soaked, a past which keeps him listenable. 
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Sampling an H-Town deep cut is a good way to grab my attention; utilizing it as smartly as Tyler does here is a great way to keep it. And he gets a decent verse out of Youngboy NBA, to boot.
[7]

Oliver Maier: Tyler’s softboi shtick — besotted but not enough to rise above the urge to neg — is an entertaining idea. His see-saw flow is clearly designed to ride the beat but doesn’t make much of an impression; it’s the electrifying Youngboy who really stands out. Ty Dolla $ign is apparently featured.
[6]

Claire Biddles: Even more so than with Igor, it’s difficult to separate the singles of Call Me If You Get Lost from their wider context. The album is a sun-warmed continuous road-and-lake trip that sees Tyler cross countries, picking up friends, lovers, cars and luxury baked goods at every port. It’s curious and expansive where Igor was introspective and nihilistic — a long-held outward breath, a relief. But in its last moments, it reveals itself as a new kind of tragedy, too. Tyler is no longer chasing what he can’t have, but running away — resigned to filling his travel itinerary with distractions. Taken in isolation, “WUSYANAME” is all bravado, from its opening goofy pick-up line to its louche new jack swing bounce. Even Tyler’s low-key fuckboy condescension (“a couple indie movies that you never heard of”) translates to irresistible charm. But for what? Knowing how Tyler structures his records with a filmic sense of time, this is either the breezy set-up for a significant heartbreak, or — more likely — a flash-forward to one of many attempts to mask that heartbreak with faux confidence, towards a girl who isn’t the girl. His effervescence masks the tedious ache of going through the motions to convince yourself that you’re not hurt. Like a lot of Call Me If You Get Lost, “WUSYANAME” sounds like carefree midday, the sun’s highest point. But that point only lasts for a moment. The sun makes its way across the sky, and the shadows get longer.
[8]

Not to be confused with the city in Wisconsin…

[Video]
[5.43]

Mark Sinker: Mad Jack Mytton (1796-1834) was a name in county local legend round where I grew up: bought himself into parliament but only ever sat for half an hour as an MP, rode a bear to a dinner party in full hunting fig, set fire to himself to cure his hiccups one time, died in debtor’s prison. Part of the story is that he drank and drank until the night he spotted a mermaid in his glass and that very moment swore off drink (except he never swore off drink). The way I was told the tellers made it funny, but actually it seems kind of sad.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: MoneyBag knows how to create a persona for an addiction that is shortening his life and hiding his wounded heart. It’s especially helped by the surprisingly smooth sample of Ashanti’s “Foolish” and DeBarge’s “Stay With Me.” Both are beautiful songs about foolish decisions, and I guess we can add Wockesha to that list as well.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Hey, all, DeBarge wrote jams as sinuous and inevitable as “Stay with Me,” but, sure, Biggie and Ashanti haven’t gone away. Coming on like 50 Cent in love man mode, Moneybagg benefits from the deceleration of the sample rubbing against the familiar trap beat. So he (barely) gets away with it.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: The sample, instantly recognizable and mostly intact, makes the rest of the track seem more chaotic — erratic rhythm, flow like stumbling through rubble. The steady sample also makes that sound less exciting than it otherwise could.
[5]

Oliver Maier: Moneybagg Yo reminds me of a crisper, less unhinged Future, but doesn’t quite match the other rapper’s magnetism. As competently as he balances sounding boastful and dejected, the whole thing is too one-note to really engage me.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: We already know how men are somehow able to make women responsible for everything, and it’s not the first time a man does so by turning them into a literary device, so I’m at a point where I’m not even mad at this song. I’m just bored of it.
[4]

Will Adams: As I wrote about “Planet Rock” earlier this year, that “Stay With Me” piano line is an evergreen sample that can trigger nostalgia across generations — whether for Ashanti or Biggie or DeBarge. Its melancholic affect works well with “Wockesha,” as Moneybagg Yo wallows into an empty cup once filled with lean. A glum but evocative listen, the kind I probably found myself experiencing late at a party, sat on a couch wondering why I was so sad.
[6]

And thus we have shown that one donk is equivalent to [1.71]. QED

[Video]
[6.57]

Will Adams: If it takes a functional house remix nine years after the fact for Nelly Furtado’s “Big Hoops (The Bigger the Better)” to get the recognition it deserves, so be it.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: Vindication for the ill-fated dice roll that was “Big Hoops”. Part of the pleasure of “Talk About” is in its reappraisal of a curiosity that slipped through the cracks; the essence of the original finally finding favour in a new form. But that essence has been amplified. Something superficially stupid is now thumpingly so, the canny work of some guys with the names of an ASMR streaming service and your local mobile disco purveyor, self-releasing themselves into the charts under the steam of frenetic phonetics. It’s tinpot, but smart — Tita Lau’s impression of Furtado is incredible, and the closing Yamaha sample is the pièce de résistance — proof above all that the bigger was the better.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Am I old, or did they used to just call these remixes? This is an OK rebrand of a better song.
[4]

Tim de Reuse: Vocal processing that’s awful for fifteen seconds before it comes back around to a solid stylistic choice; any more strained and it’d be a nightcore abomination, any better and it wouldn’t be unintelligible enough to substitute for an obnoxious lead synth. The unwieldiness of the phrase “talk about sex” as a spliced-together hook is made up for by the moral and aesthetic purity of a narrator bragging about the size of their pant legs.
[7]

Alex Clifton: It took me a second listen to realize there were actual lyrics to this song, not just another higher synth over the chords. It’s light and catchy enough, but fairly standard.
[4]

Mark Sinker: Eeny meeny minie mo whicha way you wanna go…Syncopation as a ramped-up stemwinder of anticipation, a structural torque on the beat that people were already anxiously saying was dated and passing from fashion as early as the 1890s, back when ragtime was still called “ragged time” — anxiously but also (which is honestly interesting) wildly wrongly. A new thing under the sun become a deeply venerable thing which is also here a formalist and even a denatured anonymous thing. La la la la la la la la la…
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: Tom Ewing once wrote about the solipsistic joy to be found in otherwise forgotten pop songs, how they decay into worlds for one: “Stick with [this kind of] song long enough and you might end up its only friend, all its tawdry public meaning now yours and yours alone.” Hearing “Talk About” is like discovering your only friend was HIDING A CLIQUE. But not an exclusive one.
[7]