So apparently she’s just left her label, or her label’s left her, which means that this song is somehow even less relevant than it already was…
[Video][Website]
[4.07]
David Moore: When I toured the BBC, the guide told me that J-Lo was the only person to demand to be driven across the yard separating the main sidewalk from the entrance, despite this being a luxury reserved only for the Queen. Flash forward about five years and she’s getting pummelled by a plodding Dream/Tricky production, Louboutin more a goal than a given. Her diva entitlement over the cheap skeleton beat creates an odd dissonance, like she drank champagne on the bus to the studio.
[5]
John Seroff: One of the great benefits of giving in to the charms of the Tricky/The-Dream monster is that you can unabashedly embrace even the most shameless product-placement jingle as long as the beat is on time, the synth bass is fuzzy and the horns are up front. The merchandise being hawked here is not so much the eponymous $800 Christian Louboutin pumps as the rapidly aging J-Lo brand. 1999’s Ms. Billion-Dollar Booty is still strutting and fretting for all she’s worth, and if the returns are diminishing, at least they’re still very much there… though I’ll be damned if this doesn’t sound like her last legit club hurrah before the adult contemporary forties beckon. Show a little respect and salute, boys; that booty is at half mast.
[6]
Michaelangelo Matos: There was something on the local CBS-affiliate 10 o’clock news after the Grammys about her “comeback”, which mostly proves how little attention anyone is paying anymore, since Lopez hasn’t hit the Hot 100 in three years. If this flat-stomping fizz about her shoes changes that, it still won’t be enough: it’s like a flyer for a party that ended years ago, occupying its space with no flair whatsoever.
[3]
Anthony Easton: That sheer black body suit with gold spangles that she wore during the CNN New Year’s was the best aesthetic moment from J Lo in half a decade; I am hoping for more costumes, because this autotuned train wreck is not nearly as interesting as what she chooses to wear.
[5]
Doug Robertson: Well done. She can put on your shoes all by herself. I look forward to her next single where she describes how she can get all the toggles on her duffel coat done up with only the bare minimum of help from the classroom assistant.
[4]
Kat Stevens: I can’t quite work out the logic behind this wronged-woman brass stomper. Jen is angry at a dude for not paying her enough attention; Jen also is angry with herself for putting up with him for so long. Fair enough. But as an international megastar, Jen is certainly rich enough to afford her own Louboutins (throw your heels up at me) and talented enough to be able to walk in them. So you’d think that either the chap would be aware that he was punching above his weight (and therefore wouldn’t be quite so neglectful of Jen) or she would have been outta there long before it got to the “stressing out on the phone” stage.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: This is a complete mess. J.Lo as R&B sassin’ spurned woman is pretty much the worst idea imaginable — she can’t manufacture a believably empathetic persona to save her life, and instead comes across as haughty and hectoring. The beat is lifeless, the synth fanfare is cheap and tinny and the chorus is so dully repetitive it’s hard to believe Ryan Tedder wasn’t involved. Louboutins on or not, Lopez can’t walk the walk and make me believe she’s better than this situation. She couldn’t sell a hook even if this song had one (it doesn’t).
[2]
Ian Mathers: I’m not sure why Lopez feels the need to spend the first 30 seconds here repeating the same not very interesting line over and over ad nauseum, but it’s far from the only misstep here. Weirdly enough, the part where she sings “part time lover” reminds me every time of Chromeo’s far superior “Bonafied Lovin’,” and that just makes me even more eager to stop listening to her singing about her shoes. Maybe the production would be compelling with someone else, but I can’t tell with all the robo-Lopez (the singer here doesn’t sound like she’s ever felt anything recognizable as an emotion, and I don’t mean that in a good way) slathered around. There’s about three things here that think they’re hooks, but none of them come close to sinking in.
[2]
Al Shipley: Pop’s least chameleonic hitmaker handing out a particularly weak and transparent piece of The-Dream karaoke, but at least he handed it to someone whose career is already dead.
[2]
Matt Cibula: At the risk of pissing off Al Shipley, I will say that this grade proves that I’m not a The-Dream stan. It might, however, mean that I am a no-fun nerd who hates campy dance tracks; in my defense, I think J.Lo sucks every ounce of fun out of every track I’ve ever heard her do, so no surprises there.
[4]
Alex Ostroff: While I’m on the record as a fan of both dissonant angry pop music and Jennifer Lopez, the two of them just aren’t a good match. The pulsing beat in the background sounds like an alarm siren at an industrial plant and the horn line is shrill where it should triumphantly announce the return of Lopez. Beyonce’s B’Day was an entire album that treated material consumption, self-sufficiency and status symbols as solutions to the problem of cretinous, unfaithful men, and “Ring the Alarm” or “Freakum Dress” are infinitely better examples of both how to dominate this sort of beat and how to tell off unworthy suitors.
[6]
Additional Scores
Pete Baran: [4]
Martin Skidmore: [6]
Alfred Soto: [2]