We’re going to start putting our top 10 scores for this year in the sidebar on Tuesday. This will not be among them…
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[5.00]
Edward Okulicz: Before the dawning of the age of MP3, I could have gone to all the student house parties on my street that were jamming the original and broken their stupid MGMT records. Instead it’s 2010 and I still can’t get away from “Kids” and chopping it up slightly and adding rote, predictable rhymes and delivering it with the enthusiasm (but also the skill) of an excitable puppy is just not helping things.
[1]
David Moore: How many times can you groan during one song? Repeated use of the word “fresh,” “mo’ money mo’ problems,” sub-sub-Kanye flow, cereal aisle, Anchorman reference, Kid Cudi lonely stoner protagonist, Asher Roth dis in the midst of wordplay that could only charitably be called Asheresque (it’s much worse). But damn, that MGMT sample does some heavy lifting — something to be said for turning so many things that should cause blinding rage into a song I do not hate.
[6]
Iain Mew: I suppose I’d noticed MGMT’s hooks were good before, but it’s not until hearing one rescued from their numerous faults and turned to a better purpose that it really hits home just how good.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: Admittedly this sounds much better to me than the original, and I kind of like the pulsing beats, but this is not an approach I can get behind at all.
[5]
Matt Cibula: Good: kinda old-school word-association flow, drum programming splashiness. Bad: everything else. Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes gets no respect whatsoever, but he could outrap this guy any day of the week.
[4]
Frank Kogan: Party rap that steps off at an angle from partying, serious intent underneath. Doesn’t have the laid back sardonicism that makes Asher Roth’s “I Love College” so potent, but I hear promise.
[6]
Chuck Eddy: Asher Roth deserves a way better answer song — where are 3rd Bass when we need them? Still, this does have a hook that non-adults can rap along to.
[5]
Hillary Brown: I want to like this far more than I do. In practice, it’s about half a step up from Asher Roth.
[5]
Alfred Soto: “The Real World” isn’t like The Real World insofar as The Real World is largely devoid of epic squabbles about bathroom privileges, but we citizens do spend lots of time lusting casually after people we know. I do know lots of people like Chiddy who still think childhood was lollipops and ponies, especially if they spent their twenties acting like toughs; they’ve traded one version of sentimentality for another. His flow, more confident than his raps, leads me to believe he knows better than this.
[6]