In which Rodney Greene uses the word “bollocks”…
[Website]
[6.92]
Alfred Soto: Six points automatically for incorporating The Adventures of Stevie V’s great minimalist house anthem; I might have given this a full ten if Dizzee’s rap didn’t serve as mere rapid-fire distraction.
[6]
Chuck Eddy: Dizzee stomps over the classic hip-house snippet energetically enough. But in case this is the beginning of a revival, I should mention that I bought a $1 used copy of 1990’s Adventures of Stevie V CD a couple years ago, and these are the next four tracks that should be sampled: “Sink Or Swim”; “Pride Before A Fall”; “Weekend”; “That’s The Way It Is.” You’re welcome.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: If Dizzee’s frantic but insubstantial rapping on this doesn’t exactly improve on the source material, he deserves some slack just for good taste here, even if his lyrical point is as weightless as, say, “Ka-Ching!” by Shania Twain. It’s all about the sounds, children, and it’s not as if you can stuff up “Dirty Cash”.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: I kind of adore Dizzee: this sounds so ’80s, with the acid house whoos and its tinny beats and ancient sample, but he contributes his usual joie de vivre over it, sounding like an overexcited kid. I was grinning all the way through this.
[9]
Frank Kogan: Feels like 1988, beats zinging around while samples and singers and rappers all bounce off one another. This is the first Dizzee pop single where the pop seems to be inspiring him rather than just forcing him to accommodate.
[8]
Hillary Brown: It’s less blunt than a lot of Dizzee’s work, but he’s reduced to, in some bits, yelling over the top of something extremely recognizable, which isn’t at all how he should be spending his time.
[5]
Kat Stevens: Having climbed all the way up to the top of the scaffolding of his stadium house, Dizzee looks down and is struck by dread vertiginous nausea — while he’s been entertaining ladies in exotic climes, millions of people beneath him are struggling to make ends meet, burrowing themselves deeper into debt, a grim future rapidly becoming the present. But what can he do? There’s not much bread to go round so Dizzee ramps up the kick drum for a banging recycled rave circus.
[8]
Renato Pagnani: Dizzee sounds amazing, his peanut butter thick bark adding grit to the track, boring its way into the squirrely synths and skittering percussion. He locks into the beat and his jittery nervous energy, which has smoothed out into a confident and precise jolt of adrenaline over the years, propels the track toward each glorious chorus. Plus he moves seamlessly from social commentary to lamentations on urban malaise to implicating himself as part of the problem of excessive spending, never sounding holier-than-thou, just self-aware. All he’s doing is turning the mirror back at us, only he knows that most of us will look straight past it and keep on dancing — and living beyond our means. And so will he. But he’s seen the bottom and hasn’t forgotten it, which provides the perspective which gives Dizzee the ability to pull off killer dance tracks like this.
[8]
Anthony Miccio: A lightweight valentine to The Adventures Of Stevie V, which I must admit means less to me than his lightweight valentine to Billy Squier – but that’s rock bias for you.
[6]
Rodney J. Greene: Strutting ’90s house is a better look for Dizzee than the ’80s-but-all-too-2000s Calvin Harris electro-bollocks he’s tried to pass off lately. Dizzee, even as he tries to put on a serious face and address the current economic woes, doesn’t have that much more to say than he has on the other singles from Tongue ‘n’ Cheek, but it’s a bit more relatable than “Holiday”, and damn if he doesn’t sound good saying it.
[8]
Alex Ostroff: It’s easily the best thing to be released from Tongue n’ Cheek: Dizzee spits more than 8 bars, has something to say and manages a few good punchlines. But his recession lament is stuck in third-person — abstract and removed rather than sympathetic. Boy in da Corner personalized the struggle, and Sway’s “Flo’ Fashion” humorously humanized bad spending habits. Dizzee’s preaching in the club is too much Kweli and not enough “All Falls Down”, but “Dirtee Cash” pulls it off. Just.
[8]
Additional Scores
Pete Baran: [6]
Ian Mathers: [5]