‘Cause we like the fallout better than the bomb, y’know.
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[7.22]
Martin Skidmore: Good grief, I didn’t know this was the next track on our list: I wasn’t thinking of a gender-flipped version, but this gets far closer, for me. It’s produced by Jordan Gatsby to sound almost identical to the original, maybe a touch sweeter. JoJo’s been pretty quiet for some years, and that’s a shame. This is like the Drake number, but by someone who can really sing, tunefully and with wistfulness and pain. She also omits the rap, thereby maintaining the mood better, and while there are lyrical changes that make it considerably less introspective (I guess we could regard this as a female reply record, sort of, and it is much prouder), I totally love it anyway.
[10]
Michelle Myers: I’ve made it my personal mission to listen to as many versions of “Marvin’s Room” as possible. This one is my favorite. JoJo plays the role of a drugged-out, emotionally unstable ex-girlfriend with shocking honesty and restraint. When pop singers take the histrionic bad-girl route, they often make the mistake of enjoying it too much. JoJo is utterly miserable with herself here, self-aware enough to know she shouldn’t be calling him but desperate enough not to care.
[10]
Jonathan Bradley: JoJo introduces us to her adulthood as bluntly as possible: with cursing, drug abuse, and explicit sexual references. She’s no longer the thirteen year old who cavorted at the funfair with Bow Wow and the transition is brutal. “I been up three days/Adderall and Red Bull” is the song’s introduction: heartbreak-cum-ruination. JoJo goes on to eviscerate herself in horrible slow-motion. “This call is a mistake,” she whispers pitifully, drunk-dialing and downing the underage drinker’s classic cocktail of spirits smuggled in a water bottle. Everything’s a mistake now, though, a vicious cycle. She goes out to the club to distract herself, only to find her ex’s buddies there mean-mugging her. “They’re all fuckin’ idiots,” but, God, she always knew that, even when she was with him, right? Fuck them, fuck that dancing Barbie doll that is his new lay, fuck love so real it’s 5150, fuck everything. The details are perfect: little things blown out of proportion, like her imagining the sex her ex is “probably” having, or the way she supposes mournfully that he’d be relieved to be free of someone “crazy” like JoJo. “Baby, I’m the best, so you can’t do the better,” is the tune’s fib, the point where she pushes Noah “40” Shebib’s black hole production past the event horizon. Well might she be the best, but the misery is that she knows it’s not enough, that he’s already decided he can do better. There’s no cure; it’s like she went to the doctor and he told her, “Girl, you better try to have fun no matter what you do.” He’s a fool; wallowing is the only way to avoid the conclusion you can’t do better.
[10]
Ian Mathers: Holy crap, when did JoJo turn into the American Robyn? Right down to the timbre of her voice and everything.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Much of the JoJo adulation of late is happening because people feel uneasy about their “Leave (Get Out)” nostalgia, overrate her accordingly, aren’t entirely sure what teens do nowadays and are thus playing right into her “see, I’m grown up!” schtick. OK, fine, she’s drinking Red Bull and taking Adderall. She’s in a club! She’s sexting! Why, she’s a regular college kid. The trick to JoJo’s “Marvin’s Room” is how she drains the song of all its self-pity. Drake whined about his problems (which mostly weren’t problems, but that’s fucking Drake for you); JoJo brags about her strengths. When JoJo says “she’s not crazy like me,” she means “crazy” as in “sexually freaky,” not as a pejorative. Her chorus is full of melisma-snappy “baby, I’m the best” lines where Drake’s delivery is one long, heaving sigh. Beneath all this is Noah “40” Shebib’s same track, circular and defeated, but JoJo’s oblivious to any doubts it might cast upon her confidence. It’s weird, but I’d rather take a well-sung mismatch over Drake-sung depression.
[7]
Jer Fairall: In which JoJo’s lyrical modifications unexpectedly improve up Drake’s awkward ones, or at least make for a more plausible post-millenial update of “You Outta Know” than what this decade’s actual Canadian-kid-actor-turned-pop-star managed. Which isn’t to say that JoJo’s words are more authentic as a rambling late-night phone call — “when you’re in her I know I’m in your head” is formed far too cogently to be spit out in a drunken rage — but they are far more cutting. Otherwise, this makes enough modifications to what made the original interesting to me that I’m tempted to call it a draw, but JoJo’s nevertheless delivered a song that I’m actually interested in hearing again rather than simply squinting at.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Best opening couplet since Gavin DeGraw’s “I Don’t Want to Be”: “I’ve been up three days/Adderall and Red Bull”. Streets ahead of Drake’s original, if only because we’re humanizing the “crazy” girl. We can hope for the Beyoncé version, but this is a fine placeholder. Might want to change the title to “J.R. Rotem’s Laptop” though.
[5]
Anthony Easton: Amusingly, this might be more misogynist, in the catastrophic failure of the Bechdel test, than the Drake tragedy-of-drowning-in-pussy version.
[1]
Zach Lyon: I tend to think that most personalities, most feelings, most situations deserve to exist somewhere in the wide spectrum of songwriting, and I have to adore JoJo’s eagerness to fill the “crazy ex” void with such a degree of awareness and commentary. It’s been done before, but rarely with such attention to character, and she clearly is playing a character — one that she loves and cares for and possibly relates with enough to portray with massive emotional verity. No idea if she wrote it or not, and it’s lyrically spare, but there are several lines worth celebrating, especially verse two, which runs from “I ran into your homeboys/they’re all fucking idiots,” (emotionally nude) to “I’mm’a send a sexy picture/to remind you what you’ve given up” (ironic commentary on her own character, physical nudity as a means of masking or defeating emotional nudity, if you believe the quavering of her vocal delivery as characteristically true). And those wonderful four lines that begin the chorus. “When you’re in her I know I’m in your head.” This is the best song Fucking Drake’s ever had anything to do with.
[8]