YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU!!!…
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[3.33]
Alfred Soto: Bitch bitch bitch.
[4]
W.B. Swygart: You wanna make something real. You wanna make an Evanescence record.
[2]
Martin Skidmore: Ten years ago a new Dre/Eminem single would be a huge event – and this has been Dre’s biggest US hit in 18 years, so maybe it still is in some quarters. Eminem sounds pretty good on this, snarling his love and respect for Dre, albeit without his past rhyming brilliance, and Skylar’s hook is warm and strong. Since this is produced by Alex Da Kid, with pounding force and ominous tones, Dre’s part is as a rapper, with a small enough role that it’s as if his is the guest verse. He’s not terrible on that, but it’s hardly his strength, and this ends up sounding like a good Eminem single — admittedly a rare and welcome event nowadays — rather than a Dre one.
[7]
Kat Stevens: Ten years to think up some beats and all you can come up with is some overblown post-Tedder emo? At least this time Eminem doesn’t say anything actively repulsive, but with two verses of Em’s whining (“Mummy, why are you down the pub when you should be at home making me an album?”), Dre nearly runs out of room to rap on his own song. When he finally gets going then it’s straight into homophobic slur time. Great. As for Skylar, combination “DAHK! TER! DAHK! TER! DAHK! TER!” and “Bring me back to liiiife” conjures up torturous refrains of the Cranberries’ “Zombie” in my head. Two points for Em saying “for fuck’s sake” and Dre saying “you can kiss my indecisive ass crack“.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: Like Blood Like Honey was too good for Holly Brook — oops, excuse me, Skylar Grey — to prop up people’s craven comebacks. Her presence here is like someone dumping a bunch of sugar into a rancid meal left out on the counter for a week to make it palatable, and it works even less well.
[4]
Asher Steinberg: Dre may be one of the dozen most important producers of pop music ever, but today, the only thing his music has left is an undeserved sense of its own importance.
[0]
Jer Fairall: In what is shaping up to be the season of the Non-Event Single (“H.A.M.,” “Hold It Against Me,” “Born This Way”), “I Need a Doctor” is the most grating one yet, a lumberingly ugly Alex da Kid production of a Dre/Em circle jerk, in light of which the “faggot” dropped here is the most disingenuous use of that word we’re likely to get all year.
[1]
Anthony Easton: I do not think that Dre has a medical licence, and if he is a doctor it is one of those honorary ones that are given by small colleges for publicity.
[4]
Zach Lyon: This is adorable.
[6]