Nom nom…

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[6.00]

Anthony Easton: Fantasia has the least usual voice to ever win anything at American Idol, and I love her generally fuck you attitude. Plus, it’s good to have her on Broadway. I like the concept and the idea of Fantasia, and I often really like work she has done, plus I’m fat enough to be seduced by the fucking means food and vice versa metaphors — so this is really close to being alright. But it’s not, and I can’t quite figure out why. Too much going on in the verses, maybe; bridges to the chorus not delineated enough; how the “woo oo ooo” syllables are not quite rich enough, they could be as dense as banana pudding and they just aren’t; the production doesn’t quite know what decade it’s in — the whole thing is a bit of a mess, which is really disappointing.
[6]

Jer Fairall: This is what happens when the recent run of retro-brilliance that brought us “Tightrope” and “Fuck You” (or hell, pretty much all of The Lady Killer) is processed through American Idol‘s ultrabland, calculatedly inoffensive polish. She sings well enough, the chimes are pretty and there is nothing at all painful about this, but would you really want to live in a world where this represented pop’s greatest aspirations?
[4]

Chuck Eddy: Top 10 new or newish soul albums I’ve heard this year that sound more like collard greens, cornbread, and sweet potato pie than Fantasia ever will: Carl Marshall Love Who You Wanna Love (CDS ’10); Mel Waiters I Ain’t Gone Do It (Waldoxy ’10); Gerod Rayborn Call Before You Come!!! (Ecko/New Groove ‘10); Carl Sims Hell On My Hands (CDS); Bigg Robb Soul Prescription (Robbmusic/JMG ’10); O.B. Buchana That Thang Thang (Ecko ‘10); Donnie Ray Who’s Rockin’ You? (Ecko); Floyd Taylor All Of Me (CDS ’10); Ms. Jody Keepin’ It Real (Ecko); Lee “Shot” Williams I’m The Man For The Job (CDS ’10). Docked a point for false advertising.
[4]

Alfred Soto: All the retro stylings can’t hide my disappointment that the title is supposed to be a metaphor.
[6]

Al Shipley: Lot of soul, but I think I would’ve liked more attention paid to the food.
[6]

Asher Steinberg: Maybe there’s something different about being Jewish, but I have no doubt that if I were to record a song about liking a girl better than my mother’s matzoh ball soup, everyone would read that as a huge ironic goofy joke on Jewish men and their weird relationships with their mothers. I find it hard to see why similar sentiments about collard greens are susceptible to a sincere, “soulful” reading, and I guess I have some concerns about the reaction to a woman of Fantasia’s race and size comparing the object of her affections to collard greens and cornbread.
[6]

Zach Lyon: I originally thought to call this out as being an empty, cheap gimmick set around a cheap comparison. And then I remembered that FOOD IS AWESOME. You claim to love someone more than you love your favorite food, glazed in nostalgia though it may be, you are going to be making a pretty big statement. One that can’t be taken back. There is nothing to dislike about this song.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: New rule: No more comparisons of lovers to food unless you’re prepared to show a) jingly, breathless production, or b) a Fantasia vocal, especially one this well-paced. And if you’ve got both, you get a lifetime pass. Salivate on.
[8]