The platonic ideal of a [5]?
[Video]
[5.00]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Last month, Mike WiLL Made It had seven of his productions on the Billboard Hot 100. That is a lot of woozy synth pads, crater-levelling basslines and dangerous hazy atmosphere to chart at one time; he is having a moment right now, but one gets the feeling an even bigger one is around the corner. Before that, there may be many more “Show Out”s, so count your blessings and pick’n’choose what you can salvage (Jeezy’s immediate flip into action for his verse, Juicy saying something as WTF as “give me head like lice”) over what you can lose (Big Sean throwing out all his adlibs before his verse starts, Jeezy’s hook, Juicy calling himself the GOAT, Big Sean.)
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: Mike WiLL crafts a creepy beat that reimagines the strip club as a haunted house, Juicy J grosses out with the line “give me head like lice,” Young Jeezy sounds like Jeezy, Big Sean is…there. Better than “Bandz A Make Her Dance” (wherein Lil Wayne whiffed out huge) but nothing any of these guys should boast about.
[5]
David Lee: (Forgets that “give me head like lice” ever happened.) Now, where were we? Ah yes, this fine piece of haunted Christmas bells in da club via Mike WiLL Made It’s backlog of glittery instrumentals. Like “Bandz A Make Her Dance,” “Show Out” revels in the shadowy pleasures of a minor key. The track luxuriates in champagne that glows golden, bling that glistens in dim light and money that rains down in slow motion. Jeezy provides gravelly partyboy shouts, and Big Sean pulls off one of his better performances, acknowledging that he can do more things with his voice than spit hashtags in a nasal monotone. Which brings us back to Juicy.
[7]
Andy Hutchins: Juicy J has been a good rapper about 5% of the time since that Oscar, and his hybridization of 2 Chainz and Wiz Khalifa flows is really not helping him out. Big Sean’s wordplay is still the work of a man who is under the mistaken impression that he’s the smartest and funniest person in the room (Xan-tastic?), and Jeezy just seems tired. Key and Peele‘s LMFAO joke didn’t quite work for me, because those guys seem to like partying; it would work better if it featured rappers like Jeezy (who is 35) and Juicy J (who is 38) who are trying desperately to sell the idea that they listen to Mike WiLL beats for anything other than work.
[3]
Brad Shoup: Great detail during the video roll call: Juicy’s still billing himself as “Academy Award Winner Juicy J” — and they included the registered trademark symbol. Shame J bungles his line reading: “I been rich since the ’90s” is primo resample soil. I really like this! Jeezy’s channeling prime Triple 6 bark on the chorus; Big Sean legitimately slays it with some great puns and subliminal melody; Mike WiLL supports him with hollowed-out dudes hollering “yeah ho”. His harp approximations give this a luxury finish. As the top-billed name, Juicy’s just a host; as the most-featured dude, Jeezy actually brags about bottle service extras.
[7]
Anthony Easton: The last bit of this, extended, extruded, pulling back from itself, made ugly and almost oppressive, is fascinating.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: It’s still a pleasure to hear Jeezy chew up those syllables — they picked the right one for the hook — but Juice and Sean are such nonentities that not even a twinklebanging Mike WiLL track can keep the party going long enough before it gets around to Jeezy’s verse.
[4]
Jer Fairall: Sean will probably be cited as the weak link here, though his equation of Anne Hathaway with “white girls” is almost as funny as Juicy’s line about head lice, or Jeezy’s request for a kidney. A respectable, One genuine LOL-worthy moment per participant (and minute), then; luckily, the chilly tingle of the accompaniment is there to fill in some of the lulls.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Big Sean is so incompetent here it’s actually hilarious; he brings the track to a thorough skid and stop and takes Jeezy with him. Everything else is returns just starting to diminish.
[5]
Crystal Leww: I’ve come around on Big Sean since “Guap”, but his verse on this is not good. He struggles to string together words that sound OK together, and the result just sounds clumsy. Everyone else is OK over an unremarkable Mike WiLL beat.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Grunting, threatening, and chewing, the threesome and Mike WiLL do their best to keep the proceedings as average as possible, although special mention for Juicy’s “give me head like lice” line: clumsy and disgusting at the same time! Maybe “Show Out” isn’t so average after all.
[4]