Warning: this is NOT the lowest score of today.
[Video]
[2.67]
Scott Mildenhall: To call The Weeknd’s lyrics juvenile would be an insult to children, and run counter to the seeming impossibility of them ever developing further. This is Jay from The Inbetweeners if his delusions were inflated by the possession of a half-decent singing voice. It’s a pub peanuts picture uncovered by a bloke buying 24 packs of KP in an ostentatious show of wealth, blissfully oblivious that he’s done the bulk of the dry roasting to himself. It’s no wonder Gesaffelstein covered his face in all the joint promotional pictures. It’s just a shame he didn’t grant this more than serviceable production the same distance from On-Heat Kirk Van Houten.
[4]
Ian Mathers: Life is too short, and there are too many good songs in any genre or style you can name, that don’t indulge in the awful old “I’m going to fuck you straight” brand of ignorance for me to give this one any spot in my life. Yeah, sure the arguments for why it’s ok to like this song are already sprouting up everywhere (make a mistake and go look at the YouTube comments and you might get a better idea of why I have a problem with the whole thing), because for some fucking reason a lot of people just can’t get that you can actually say “oh, this is regressive as shit and I still like it” and stop there, instead of getting in the faces of those who are understandably disturbed or hurt by this crap and trying to tell them why their feelings are wrong. That alone doesn’t make you a bad person. As for me, like I said, it just lands on the wrong side of my personal lines and I don’t see any need to hide that.
[0]
Ryo Miyauchi: Lonely glass-house musings over sleazy electro: it’s yet another song by The Weeknd, it seems. His understanding of loneliness feels bizarrely alien with his words sometimes sounding as if it was strung together instead by a sex-hungry, homophobic AI. But he also persistently mentions his blown-out lifestyle, situated a dozen classes removed from the rest of society, to the point his reveal of simple human emotion comes off cheap and deceitful in the way it asks for sympathy.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Musically, this has a nice, plush groove (though I actually prefer Gesaffelstein when he’s feeling more industrial, cf. Yeezus), but FUCK Abel for his “fuck you straight” and “going through a phase” bullshit, which isn’t just bullshit but is legitimately harmful. I’d love for someone/s to kick Mr. Weeknd in the balls, repeatedly, for the grossness of his lyrics here. And who the fuck thought it was a good idea to release this, let alone as a single?! Everyone involved, including Gesaffelstein, can go to hell.
[0]
Alfred Soto: Like the Access Hollywood tape confirmed Donald Trump’s essential grossness to the credulous, “Lost in the Fire” illuminates the queer-hostile narcissism of The Weeknd’s mission, a kindness, I’ll admit — does he, like Trump, plan? Like the Access Hollywood tape, it will change no one’s mind either.
[1]
Will Adams: That Tesfaye keeps leaning, “Smooth Criminal” style, into his Lothario schtick to the point where it’s gone from pitiful to revolting isn’t a problem in itself — it offers a stark contrast to the polite neon sound he employs from a French house producer du jour. It’s that he’s on the umpteenth iteration of that leaning, and it’s tired.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Gesaffelstein has produced what sounds kind of like a fantastic 2010s remix of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away,” and he should have left it at that, and all my points are for that. Instead, there’s The Weeknd on top of it for more of his sad little starboy/fuckboy fantasies, because of course, the girl possibly being into girls exists only as boner fuel for him. I think there’s something very irresponsible about using a term like “fuck you straight” in a pop song when “corrective” rape actually exists, and more so because he’s putting on the lovelorn FEELINGS while doing so. I mean, he just sounds like a dude who’s getting no sex from the girl he likes so is having an incel moment, and that’s… well, repeat the last sentence. To my knowledge, The Weeknd has never committed any kind of sexual assault: is there a need for him, or anyone, to play-act the role of “abuser” in 2019?
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: No one, in 2019, does nocturnal synthmood better than the Weeknd: music for falling into a cab, alone or otherwise, extending the night by more hours in more bars under less light. No one does it grosser than the Weeknd either, turning mood-setting into exploitative porn. If only this were an instrumental MIDI, or a Post Malone looped chorus cheat, or perhaps a commission for another terrible Fifty Shades movie, where he’d have to censor all the gruesome specifics.
[6]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: It’s been eight years since the earliest Weeknd tracks dropped and all eight of those years have been filled with me pining for the same thrill of hearing “The Morning,” “Wicked Games,” “What You Need,” and “Loft Music” for the first time, pre-House of Balloons. Part of it was the allure of Abel’s once-anonymous identity, part of it was an R&B landscape that didn’t make countless attempts at biting his sound, part of it was the apparent dearth of creativity that would define The Weeknd’s discography. With “Lost in the Fire,” The Weeknd continues his Gesaffelstein collaborations with a single that sounds like an energetic “Hurt You.” On that song, he found sick pleasure in 1) pointing out that his ex had suicidal ideations, 2) shaming her for “try[ing] to fill the void with every man” she meets, 3) proclaiming that he’d still have sex with her, and 4) coming off the good guy by stating he doesn’t want to hurt her. Are the lyrics here any less regressive, self-obsessed, or disingenuous? Of course not. For some, that’s part and parcel to his appeal. But after eight years of his shtick, I’m surprised anyone still cares when songwriting hasn’t improved. Admittedly, the beat has a satisfying bounce, but The Weeknd doesn’t deserve a pass for crooning over an instrumental that doesn’t sound inappropriately lethargic.
[4]