No more Mr. Nice Gentleman!
[Video][Website]
[3.88]
Brad Shoup: Or as the prosecution refers to it, “Exhibit A.”
[2]
Jonathan Bogart: There are a whole lot of offenses being perpetrated here, from the condescending I-know-what’s-best-for-you-girl sentiment to the thin Eurohouse production. But maybe the worst of it is the sheer arrogant conviction Ne-Yo brings to it, the total certainty that he’s doing everyone involved a favor rather than just urging his own desires. Give me open and unembarrassed requests for pussy any day.
[4]
Alfred Soto: I like the generosity of the title plea: it’s typical Ne-Yo. But the title still alludes to one of his first and best hits as a songwriter – a hit whose quiet fervor was striking enough to serve as a forebear to Miguel’s “Sure Thing” years later. Now it’s 2012, Guetta Nation has swallowed R&B, and Ne-Yo is trying too hard for (a) a hit (b) to be straight.
[5]
Anthony Easton: I think a woman cannot love herself until she confronts the patriarchy that assumes a hetero-sexist/phallocentric relationship will sustain her. I don’t think that Ne-Yo does this.
[0]
Patrick St. Michel: Despite featuring the sort of Euroclub breakdown that pops up in so many songs nowadays, this one wisely still spends its time highlighting Ne-Yo’s dynamic voice. The verses do this better than the big explosive chorus – check the way he sings the line “I just want to be the one to remind you how to smile” – so this loses a point for extending the hook too long.
[7]
Jer Fairall: Fresh off the tender, affectionate triumph of “Lazy Love” Ne-Yo opens R.E.D.‘s second single with a swirl of ballady piano and eager drum-loop shuffle, a tonally ideal setting for both his congenial brand of intimacy and the sweetly encouraging titular sentiment. But as soon as StarGate’s hollow, ravey synths plod their way in the song reveals itself as being for everyone and no one, the latest in commercial R&B’s irksome trend of following up a distinct and even risky single with something empty, generic and wholly base-covering.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: If you really wanted to, having run out of dungeons and damsels, you could hear Ne-Yo’s lyric as condescending or, worse, sweet-talking a girl with no self-esteem into fucking you — kind of like how people thought One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful” was disingenuous. Such white-knighting ignores the fact that this is exactly how said girls’ rescue fantasies sound; they generally find it escapist and charming. Ne-Yo’s not the real villain anyway, considering Stargate’s choked a once-lush piano part with beats until it learns to kill itself.
[5]
Will Adams: This is very repetitive. It’s also redundant, in addition to being repetitive. It’s not just the stale Europop that’s repetitive, it’s the literally cut-and-pasted bridge and the clunky title that’s repetitive (and redundant). I think I might even call this recursive, but mostly repetitive. And also redundant. And also a bit sad considering “Let Me Love You” is a thousand times better and wasn’t even sung by Ne-Yo. “Let Me Love You” was also not as repetitive or redundant as this, because this is very repetitive.
[4]