Lady Gaga ft. R. Kelly – Do What U Want

What we want is not to use the photo of her arse…

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[7.00]Edward Okulicz: Lady Gaga has largely disappeared up her own backside, but turns out she does still know how to combine being pretentious and heavy-handed with creating quality singles. This is the sort of sleekly sexual banger that Christina Aguilera has been trying and failing to make with increasingly (and unintentionally) hilarious results for years now, and Gaga has got it so, so right. But there are interesting things going on in the lyric that I haven’t quite figured out either: “do what you want” with her body, as if her body is expendable or inessential to her, all while the song sneakily has its way with your body. It’s not great because of R. Kelly’s bit, but make no mistake, his bit is great too.
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Patrick St. Michel: Did Lady Gaga chill with Drake at some point this year? Did they share notes? Or is this just the sonic trend everyone agreed should dominate the radio in fall 2013? This follows a similar track as “Hold On, We’re Going Home” — the beat, mainly — with only a few big changes. Gaga is far more confident stretching her voice out, and R. Kelly makes for a nice guest even if he isn’t adding anything particularly special. But where “Hold On, We’re Going Home” was a nice surprise, this is sorta what I wish Gaga did all the time.
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Crystal Leww: Gaga’s nobility has gotten annoying overt and incredibly overwhelming in the last couple of years, so it’s nice to see a return to caring about hooks and dance floors. Her parts of the song appear to be an indictment of media spin and culture’s obsession with image, slipping in context clues like “but then you print that shit” but masking it all in an incredibly simplistic yet catchy as all hell hook. It’s the same approach that made “Paparazzi” so weirdly compelling, and it helps that R. Kelly didn’t seem to get the memo and takes the whole “do what you want with my body” thing quite literally. Kellz is a king here, and DJ Shadow highlights all the intricacies of his performance. The “eh eh eh”s in the intro, his ad-libs throughout his verse, the way that he finishes off the end of lines, the moment where he sings “it’s a private party” with the party trailing off into falsetto, are some real classic moments, the type of vocal performance made for sing-alongs and karaoke night.
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Alfred Soto: She’s good when her voice comfortably nestles into a midrange, a bit like Madonna singing “Angel.” The beats evoke Ciara’s recent “Overdose” — another plus. Best, note the effortless segue into Kells’ buttery vocal. It could use another verse, though.
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Brad Shoup: I feel bad typing this, but the Muzic Monstaz’s quickie take on Spotify bangs harder. The original rides the four-on-the-floor way too hard; while Gaga offers up an anthemic fragment, she and Kells are content to bat it about like they’re on P-O-N-G. Except for Robert hitting “fuuuuuuuuck”: that’s awesome. And so is the sentiment, and the melody it rides. Something’s almost here.
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Anthony Easton: For a song from an album called ARTPOP, this is pretty artless. There is a delicious irony there: commissioning Koons to make the album cover, and then delivering a kind of reflective gloss and mid-1990s nostalgia. There should be points for that, and for the R. Kelly verse, which overwhelms her best instincts.
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Scott Mildenhall: From the duality of the “private party” and public property to that of mind and body — it’s not just typical Gaga territory, moving nimbly between The Complex Nature Of Fame and more essential notions. That dexterity comes through in focused ambiguity — lyrically it’s far less heavy-handed than “Applause”, and the indefinite is nearly always more interesting than the definite. Sounding hard and fast is better than being hard and fast, basically, and the streamlined yet pummeling production covers that too, like someone took Occam’s razor to one of Kavinsky or Danger’s busier tracks. It’s all one big contradiction to be taken however you like; the only certainty is there’s a lot packed in to fall for.
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Will Adams: Gaga is at her best when she dresses her political statements in larger pop statements, and “Do What U Want” might be the best manifestation of this. The chemistry between R. Kelly and her is palpable; they trade the mic as if they’ve been dueting for years. But the title’s double meaning reveals itself in the chorus: “You can’t stop my voice/’Cause you don’t own my life/But do what you want with my body” is the brilliant switch. From then on, the whole song is thrown into question. Is “Do What U Want” a submission to love, or to the public eye? Is R. Kelly, as his verse implies, saving Gaga from paparazzi, or is he just one of them who’s lucky to get close enough to her? Does the single’s cover art ask to be gazed upon for titillation or repulsion? The song never quite answers these questions, and the oscillation between love and fame explored in “Applause” collapses into a single entity.
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David Turner: I’m going to be a weak person. I’m just gonna say it. BUTT. THE BUTT. Post-Miley, Gaga just seems so boring. I’m not entirely sure it is her fault, though. “Applause” was a good single and a good video, and her VMA performance was probably one of the better ones from the night. Yet “Do What U Want” is probably the most boring I’ve found a Gaga single since The Fame. “Forward-thinking,” “striking,” “offensive” — no. Nothing. This song is nothing.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I can’t help but be reminded of the supposedly anti-feminist fuss surrounding the mostly harmless “Take Back the Night” and “Blurred Lines” when I listen to “Do What U Want”: again, a pop song operating somewhere between politicising the body and the body as conduit. The difference this time is Gaga, who goes the full mile performance-wise and offers some feminine perspective to this current glut of sexually-minded hits. The problem, however, is Gaga’s submissive attitude, especially when Kellz doesn’t meet her on the same level. Kelly is bolstered by his appearance over an EQ-cruncher, the logical next step from his Phoenix collaborations and a side-step from going full-on EDM. It’s a good sound for him. It would be better still if he and Gaga were coming from the same place.
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Daisy Le Merrer: Basically, this is the track for the training montage in an ’80s movie, except that instead of hitting the gym or the dojo, our main character finds her way out of the second act in the bed of strangers. That’s exactly the kind of slightly witty subversion I expect from a Gaga teaser single.
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Katherine St Asaph: Lady Gaga is on the verge of being disowned by a bunch of Internet music critics. What can she do to regain her momentum? Why, be a real Class Actress. And throw some Mariah melisma in with the eh-ehs, and get R. Kelly in somehow. Lady Gaga and soft rock-n-B: it’s a total tastefuck, yet bizarrely plausible without the context, like Joan Didion writing for Thought Catalog or John Darnielle collabing with Amanda Palmer. Gaga sings predictably well (was this a Christina track at some point?) but writes below her par, taking something mundane like friends with benefits, sprinkles on fame and feminism and metaphor, and leaves it less profound than she thinks; the basic idea doesn’t work any better than it did on “Paparazzi,” which didn’t work. Kells plays the guy she’d prefer to know nothing about, and his singing obliges. You can’t even imagine them in the club together, let alone at each other’s bodies. Where there should be frisson, both parties thinking they’ve beaten the other, there’s just a feeble Fame Monster album track. Gaga’s done this better, with more gusto and more conviction; the problem with ARTPOP might end up being there’s not enough of either.
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