Too many possible jokes about what song this could be a cover of… Short circuiting… Frzzz… sptt.
[Video][Website]
[4.29]
Alfred Soto: Working Terius Nash’s post-Prince template of wet falsetto atop Linn drum, Clay shows an adequate voice to accompany the personality. The sort of single that airplay might redeem, in other words.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: Markell Clay has a lot of potential — great voice and clearly linked up with individuals capable of producing music that matches his singing well (on “Magic,” that’s a rising series of electronics leading up to a moment of truth…before going even further). This is good, but ultimately not enough for a nearly four-minute-long song. Still, keep an ear on him in 2014.
[5]
Crystal Leww: Markell’s got a nice voice that’s capable of riffing August Alsina but with the clean sheen of someone like Jason Derulo, and that production work with the stutter beat sounds like the correct sort of sound that he should be singing over. Someone has desperately got to help him with these lyrics though. This is basically all riff and no meaningful substance, settling for “Can I touch you baby?” and “She makes magic” times what feels like infinity. His voice isn’t really suited for sex jams, and it’s certainly better than this songwriting.
[4]
Will Adams: The charming video shows that Markell Clay’s got the charisma to back up his voice: smooth but vulnerable; the way he cracks during the outro ad-libs is nothing but endearing. Shame that he’s made to work with such a dud of a song for his first at-bat.
[4]
Brad Shoup: I thought we were in for wall-to-wall Princegramming. It’s fine that we’re not, but Clay’s pushing a horizontal line. All the excitement’s in the backing vocals. Those Timbo synths are all right, but the buzzbass needs to be boosted to narcotic levels.
[5]
David Lee: A by-the-numbers strip club anthem via a poor pastiche of Chris Brown tenderness — nasal and tepid, with the occasional pleasured sigh or harmonized whine to break the utter dullness of it all. And boy, that “Hypnotized” reference does this song no favors, only offering a better example of what I think it wants to do, although I’m still not entirely sure.
[2]
Jonathan Bogart: Lot of dudes want to be Usher. Only a few can even be Trey Songz.
[4]