About time we covered him beyond Shoup talking about his Pazz and Jop…
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Alfred Soto: “Rub You the Right Way” was 25 years ago, and it still astonishes me: one of the most frantic Jam-Lewis productions, with Gill huffing and puffing and feeling and stroking yet unable to knock it down. “Behind Closed Doors” by comparison depends on a conventional midtempo approach. Gill rasps through a Pharrell-inspired falsetto that recalls the old baritone threat only after a couple minutes in. Welcome back.
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Thomas Inskeep: I am exceedingly happy that, thanks to the Adult R&B radio format, R&B stars of yesteryear no longer feel like they have to keep up with the kids, and can instead focus on what they do best: largely, making lovin’ music. I mean, really, can you imagine if Johnny Gill were making ill-advised records with Young Thug? Fortunately, instead we get creaminess like this slice of early-’90s throwback that could damned near pass for a Hi-Five or Phil Perry hit. Sumptuous.
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Jessica Doyle: I heard the opening beat, slightly menacing, and got so excited! Then it turned out that Gill chose falsetto for this one, and it comes out rather thin and uninspired. I suppose if he’d sung lower people would be complaining about a retread of “Rub You the Right Way.” Problem is, I was 12 in 1990, and “Rub You the Right Way” helped introduce to me the idea that a tension between lyrics and tone could itself be sexy. So from a purely personal perspective, all subsequent Gill releases have a lot to live up to.
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Micha Cavaseno: Johnny Gill, aka the New Jack Dennis Edwards, is here over something that sounds gigglishly off-base. Gill returns to his post-Luther gospel soloing (and it ain’t what it used to be), yet his chorus seems peanut-brittle in strength. It’s the elephantine nature of those synth horns, the turgid quality of the piano hitting the bass, that keeps this lumbering and reveals the music’s metaphorical gut.
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Josh Winters: If Toni Braxton & Babyface’s “Hurt You” was “Hold On, We’re Going Home” for the middle-aged set, this is their “773 Love.”
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Anthony Easton: I only kind of like how soul-fried the production is here, and how the code (dancer, really?) is so loose a euphemism it seems more of a placeholder for historical memory than an actual thing. This is especially true when his fantastic voice under services the song.
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Brad Shoup: Not because of the falsetto itself — I hope not, anyway — but the way Gill inhabits it, the way it seems to exist outside of his body… it seems like transference. I can picture his lover caught up in his moment, because it’s her moment too. The track is a slow-motion leer, pounding in kicks and brass hums like railroad spikes. Love is a funny-ass thing.
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