Between Usher, Miguel, and now this, 2012 is looking like TSJ’s Year of the Gentleman.
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[7.29]
Alex Ostroff: Libra Scale‘s singles campaign accomplished the near-impossible task of making me totally uninterested in listening to a Ne-Yo album. So if the languid and comfortably seductive “Lazy Love” never approaches the glory of “So Sick” or the perfection of Year of the Gentleman‘s Imperial Phase, it convinces me in three minutes that I shouldn’t have written Shaffer off so quickly, and that’s no small feat.
[7]
Iain Mew: The chorus is reminiscent of Shayne Ward and the facts of the narrative don’t involve much more than Ne-Yo meeting a really nice girl and having some really nice sex. Yet somehow he turns it into an amazing high stakes drama. There are booming drums and teasing licks of guitar and tinkling pianos and he treats everything with tortured seriousness. He’s not just going to be late, he has responsibilities! Listening to him you feel like the world might just fall apart if he doesn’t run to save it. He’s a victim in some cruel master plan. The shower sex scene turns into something from Psycho. It could be very silly — it kind of is very silly — but with its force of feeling it stares down silliness and that act of staring it down is highly compelling.
[8]
Alfred Soto: The big beat and arpeggiated guitar, incongruous for a Ne-Yo single by themselves, pale beside “I’m officially the opposite of her,” as odd as a K-pop transcription. He’s also not lazy about promoting his sexual prowess; he’s better at suggesting than narrating. But it doesn’t go on for a second more than necessary.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: “I’m officially the opposite of early” is either a stroke of genius or a clunker, and I’m going to have to listen to the song several dozen times to tell which. Not that I mind.
[8]
Brad Shoup: He nearly clears the obstacle of the first verse: an indifferently-sketched loverman scenario with lots of superfluous interjection is not my sweet spot. But then he slides into an existential plane with the help of a Moogish bass rumble. The chorus sustains the mood somewhat, and suddenly the voices — harmonizing with attention paid to contrasting timbre — are a help. As someone whose worst part of the day is the moment I leave her to the rest of daylight, I appreciate the tempting sentiment.
[7]
Jer Fairall: Not quite the drop dead sexy thing that Miguel’s “Arch & Point” is, but what it lacks in erotic charge it makes up for in warmth; Ne-Yo’s domesticated version of sensuality is clearly of the slow jam variety, but his is such a forthright and non-squeamish take on S-E-X that it feels downright revolutionary in light of the prudishness of the current political climate (and the clownishness of garbage like “Sexy and I Know It”). Could 2012 be the year we all become grown ups on all matters carnal again? If so, it’d make me even happier than the sheer gorgeousness of this production.
[8]
Anthony Easton: The funny thing about this is that it’s really not that lazy — you have to work hard for the languorous, half seductive, low voice to succeed. It’s like stage magic, hiding all of the hard work under a gloss of smooth patter and distracting hand movements.
[6]