Look, at least it’s not a transparent euphemism for an erection. Unless it is.
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[3.89]
Brad Shoup: Avicii, you crazy for this one!
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Sounds like someone remixed a Folger’s Coffee ad into a generic club banger.
[2]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: I don’t think it’s churlish to demand a hook from my bozo jams and these two are happy to give you more than one: tragicomic alcohol puns (“a night you won’t remember/I’ll be the one you won’t forget”), lumberjack hollers, shoehorned oohs’n’ahhs, Pitbull leading an EDM ceilidh like it’s “Culo”, a harmonica riff Avicii couldn’t clear in time. It confuses the following until they all begin to look like the same thing: the blues and “Cotton-Eye Joe,” clown-shoe come-ons and bonafide sex appeal, Dynasty-era Jay nimbleness and just bellowing loudly, “Crazy Kids” Ke$ha and “Round Round” Ke$ha. “Timber” is terrible, but it has enough chutzpah to make everything in its orbit sound like too many drinks and too many base inhibitions. It’s great at being crap.
[4]
Will Adams: For all the naysayers who question whether Pitbull is still necessary, here’s your rebuttal: Two years ago it was Lindsay Lohan, now it’s Miley Cyrus. He just needs to update his cultural references, is all! Meanwhile, Ke$ha tries to reprise the hook singer role that first introduced her to the masses, but it makes no sense. At this point, she’s shown too much persona to justify being relegated to the chorus. I can’t fault her too much, though, given the song she’s asked to work with: dear Lord, this thing is one fiddle away from being “Cotton Eye Joe.”
[3]
Mallory O’Donnell: Oddly, “Timber” enumerates the current dismal state of crass dance crossover nuggets for the very same reasons it stands out, as it were, from the pack. This field has been so over-mined of late that the once dominant Pitbull is reduced to latching his house clownmobile to a hoedown passed over by Rednex and a completely limp lumberjack analogy in a desperate attempt to sound different. Kesha advertises her wares and promises a “night you won’t remember” but Pitbull’s already forgotten knocking down this particular bit of hardwood.
[3]
Anthony Easton: How Ke$ha sings “Timber” and how Pitbull sings “swing your partner round and round” makes me wonder — where is the dance remix of fab square dancing? In Mexican pop you see the inclusion of polkas, so it is not outside the realm of possibility, but the closest pop has gotten is maybe McLaren, and that was a bit too precious. Pitbull could be the person to revive the instinct.
[4]
Crystal Leww: Ke$ha hasn’t sounded this nondescript, lifeless, and boring since…well, the time that she sang the hook to a Flo Rida song.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: You know what I just re-listened to? “Larger Than Life.” You know what happens in the first few seconds of “Larger Than Life”? “EEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAAA!” Why do I dredge this up? Because the ’90s if your pop song’s hook is “timber,” someone should eventually yell “TIMBER!”. Pitbull might, if he weren’t busy with his EDM “The Farmer and the Cowman,” which in 2013 equals trendy somehow. Ke$ha might, if this weren’t probably the reason she stopped talking to Dr. Luke. It is literally the least they could do. I feel cheated.
[5]
Alfred Soto: The harmonica and hand claps and Ke$hanomics belong in a song without Pitbullistics.
[5]