Have you accidentally ruined a work meeting with this song? The TSJ team would like to hear from you…
[Video][Website]
[6.67]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Until you’ve experienced the unfettered, chaotic joy of a co-worker accidentally blasting this song during the middle of a virtual work meeting, you won’t fully be able to enjoy this song like I have.
[8]
Samson Savill de Jong: I suspect your entire opinion about this song will come down to whether or not you can stand the bodyodyodyodyodyoydoydoydoydoydoydoy chorus or not. Which is a shame, because everything around that is pretty unquestionably good. It’s another song by Megan bragging about how sexy she is, but she continues to do it well so there’s no reason for her to stop. The verses have flow, Megan oozes charisma, and there are some good lines in there too. But yeah, that chorus. I think Megan’s charisma is the only reason that it could ever work, but even that is not enough for me, and it strays into annoying rather than funny (especially as, being the chorus, it repeats. 4 times in a song which is less than 3 minutes long). I might be able to deal with it on a single listen through, but it makes me not want to listen to the song again.
[6]
Jeffrey Brister: Not as outrageously horny as “WAP,” and a bit lazier, but it’s fine. Megan keeps the one-liners coming, and switches up her flow enough to keep things interesting. And it’s a testament to how fucking long this year has felt when a Carole Baskin reference, from a work that’s not even a year old at this point, elicits a powerful groan and eye-roll from me. The diet-bounce “body-ody-ody” in the chorus grates, and makes me do that thing where I think about stuff that’s similar but better — like the chorus in Mr. Ghetto’s “Wally World“.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: One of the (many) reasons I love Megan so much is the way that she doesn’t only own her sexuality, but she’s so in your face about it, and she does so to great effect on “Body,” destined to be the Thick Girl Anthem (™) of 2021. The song itself is pretty simple, with a basic beat and boomin’ bass supporting Megan (though don’t be fooled, she spits plenty of clever lines in under three minutes), and its chorus is nothing more than “Body-ody-ody-ody” ad infinitum — but in this case, its simplicity is its strength. This sounds as if designed for maximum singalong appeal, and it succeeds on that level in spades. “Body” isn’t great art, but it doesn’t have to be, to still be kinda great.
[7]
Harlan Talib Ockey: All right, I need a way to talk about this that doesn’t sound like the “goop on ya grinch” tweet. The flow? Unambitious. “Body” lacks the virtuosic rhythmic and timbral switch-ups we’ve seen from Megan on singles like “Captain Hook” or even “W.A.P.” The closest comparison would perhaps be “B.I.T.C.H.”, but while the simplicity there felt frank and impassioned, it’s hard to tell what she’s going for with it here. The lyrics? Also meh. There are a couple of good punchlines (see: “baby back”), but nothing truly jaw-dropping, and vast swaths of the verses end up largely nondescript. The beat? Oh no, did I accidentally stumble into the “straight” category on PornHub? Actually, the beat is pretty fantastic. LilJu keeps its incessant energy up while still creating depth and nuance through the bass hits and camera snaps. The hook? Absolutely infuriating. I kind of love it. It’s one of those drunken-scream-along chants that I’m sure is going to pop off in a group setting, even if it’s rough when you’re just sitting at home. Overall? This is mostly pedestrian hot girl shit buoyed by a few bright spots.
[6]
John Pinto: Megan Thee Stallion’s Buzzfeed quiz results are in and not only would she have sex with her clone, she’d probably make a bunch of clones and just get it on with all of them at once because that’s how pro clone-fucking she is. “Body” proves that such thought experiments are perfect for quarantine, when the immediacy of sex must transform into something responsibly distanced (googling pics of Megan for… reasons) or totally abstract (staring at the mirror until you break the word “body” down to base syllables).
[8]
Austin Nguyen: While it doesn’t boast some of her more memorable lines (Pray Tell is a plus though), “Body” takes what Beyoncé did with BOOF BOOF as punctuation and hula-hoops the syllables around for an entire chorus, going from “body” to “yody” to “yada” with nothing but bed-thumping bass and Megan’s bravado in the verses.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Megan’s created an amazing jingle for an advertisement for some kind of sports bra but bless her, she’s forgotten to do much else other than be harmlessly smutty besides. To be fair, “bodyodyodyodyodyodyody” is so massive a hook that style guides are going to include standardised spellings of it to get everyone on the same page while it’s a hit. Megan’s confidence and presence is such that she almost gets away with doing not a lot else, but “Body” is exhausting once you get over the fact that unlike her best work, there’s no particular wit on offer in her one-liners.
[5]
John Seroff: BODYoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddyoddy, by which I mean to say: this absolutely slaps.
[8]