Keyshia Cole – Next Time (Won’t Give My Heart Away)

Only reviewed her thrice, though, which seems odd…

[Video][Website]
[5.90]Hazel Robinson: I’ve really liked Keyshia Cole, in principle, since she was on the monumentally amazing “Last Night” with Diddy, but have always been slightly underwhelmed by her actual output. So it’s with ENORMOUS pleasure that I discover this is a wound-coil-tight, anxious-horny-fretting anthem to lying on your settee, twitching with frustrated, worried desire and heartbreak. It goes absolutely nowhere, except some distance towards the 80s and that’s absolutely fine, immersive and hypnotic and self-defeatingly heartbroken. “I miss you but I can’t/can’t do this no more” is the central spine-twist to the writhing thoughts here, wriggling on a glorious bed of synth nails.
[8]

Crystal Leww: “Next Time” relies too deeply on Keyshia Cole’s vocal ability, particularly her ability to sing the fuck outta anything, and tries on no other front. The songwriting’s boring, the beat is boring, the little flourishes in the chorus are boring, the chorus is boring, the lyrics are boring, the very little rise and fall there is boring. Keyshia Cole sounds boring. This is a karaoke jam for those who are interested in taking karaoke night very seriously. No thanks.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The solid Woman to Woman didn’t increase her pop profile, but what else is new. “Next Time (Won’t Give My Heart Away)” won’t either. Her emotions restrained by a burbling sequencer line that’s like a brook cutting through volcanic activity, Cole sings the received ideas with care. I suspect she’s one Future appearance from a high profile.
[7]

Anthony Easton: She pushes those vowels like mid-90s Mariah and the chorus has some historical memory of Donna Summer. Nile Rodgers come home — Ms. Cole needs you.
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: A fluttery number that captures the conflict at the heart of it… it’s neither sad or furious, just resigned to what must be, without delivering too much more.
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: This twinkles beautifully and Cole sings with grace and conviction but it’s a musical hamster wheel describing an emotional roller coaster. Near the end a bit of real heartbreak unfolds and there is space for movement and emotion. And then you realize the whole song could have been like that but really wasn’t. No fault of hers.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: This song nags at me and gets better with subsequent listens, a definite grower. Cole uses a mannered low-to-midrange to great effect — no melismas here — and helps get her point across more directly than if she were shouting it. Lyrically it plows her usual row of “you hurt me and I’m through,” but this side of Mary J. Blige, few pull it off as expertly as Cole does. The spare production and keyboard trills in the chorus also serve to serve the song’s lyric rather than overpower it. I’m giving it a [7] today, but this could well be an [8] a month from now. A welcome return.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Cole’s mixed so she’s confessing directly into my ossicles. It’s that presence that gives this poignance — that, and her way with a line reading. The melody never unspools properly, leaving it up to the cosmic sequencer to get the track off the ground. Based on that suspended, tragic ending, though, maybe this is supposed to stay rooted.
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Less a single than a locked blog post, with all of the bad formatting and stilted structure you’d expect. Mad 3 a.m. Livejournal vibes.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: “4 AM” if dude was a user after all, plus percussion oomph and a shivering synth: less a fully-formed song than Keyshia forming her feelings into one in real time.
[7]