From a Hollywood backroom to every radio station ever…
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[4.57]
Jer Fairall: In which movie soundtrack cuddliness turns out to be a much better look for our Pitbull than his usual tiresome skeeziness, at least for the length of time that this one rides along, rather nicely, on the gravitas of a well chosen sample. The dubstep breakdown is there because, as a 2012 corporate product, it has to be.
[6]
Anthony Easton: I really like “Love is Strange,” but I wonder if one of the problems of copyright recently is the sample being chunkier, more identifiable, more obvious–the seamless collage, or the idea of taking a tiny snippet one beat, one line, and stripping everything off — is replaced with more of an aggregate and less of a concrete. Blame it on media conglomerates wanting to sell current pop singles, past pop catalogs, soundtracks, and films themselves — you can only really do that if everything in the mix is easily identifiable and readily grabable. It doesn’t make great music.
[4]
Brad Shoup: Pitbull and Big Willie money, and they couldn’t spring for the remastered Mickey & Sylvia? I have no clue why Flo Rida didn’t score this gig; he’s been working up to this kind of thing all year. The see-saw guitar bit gets supremely obnoxious fast — the synth riff after the dubstep is a much better base — and sadly, the sexy intro is an ill fit for the goofiness of what follows. Whoever convinced Will Smith of his on-wax ridiculousness, I hope you’re happy with what you’ve done.
[5]
Alfred Soto: I’m surprised the ingenious, fungible “Love is Strange” hook hasn’t been sampled more often but I wouldn’t have entrusted my hometown boy’s producers with it. The clippety-clop of the beat and Pitbull’s stentorian delivery smother its charm. The track does sport one clever moment: when Pitbull barks “back in time” the riff starts again, 2012 and another lousy sequel looking back towards Eisenhower-era racial politics.
[5]
Iain Mew: The use of outdated slang “groovy, baby” acts as a signal that the film involves its characters travelling back in time to the ’60s. Simultaneously, the use of outdated comedy meme “groovy, baby” takes us, the listeners, back in time to 1997, when people actually cared about Men in Black. I don’t know if that bit of headspinning meta is deliberate or a fluke, but it’s definitely the most interesting thing about this song.
[4]
Rebecca Toennessen: Blimes, there’s a Men in Black III? I didn’t know there was a II. And for a moment I thought it would be a Huey Lewis & The News cover; no dice. The video is delightfully silly and happily features probably the best bits of the film. Though at three and a half minutes, it still feels a wee bit too long. I’m not sure how I feel about the “Love Is Strange” sample. Confused and bewildered, maybe.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Is there anything in this song a loop of the sample wouldn’t outdo?
[3]