And nobody misses Rikrok, for shame…
[Video][Website]
[5.38]
Micha Cavaseno: Shaggy’s always been kind of a fraud when it comes to dancehall. His hits were so super commercial and Plasticine, you can’t really compare them to anything going on in Jamaica. With this late attempt to cast his lot in the global jetsetter pop world, the midway point between Akon and Michael Franti (a Bermuda triangle realm of pop), I fear he’s finally met the end of his con.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Shaggy! Where’ve you been? Add a stentorian electric guitar solo and you might have had a lost Santana track from Shaman, that’s where.
[4]
Ian Mathers: Jesus Christ, I’ve missed Shaggy. The other three? The chorus is sturdy enough, but the one non-Shaggy verse seems like an easily avoidable mistake.
[7]
Scott Mildenhall: On paper this is an international B-list match made in heaven, the sort of lineup that can only be watched from Britain with a wish that their likes weren’t non grata with The People In Charge. On record, however, it’s disappointingly flat. With such a cast list — Mohombi, the man who interpolated The Cranberries with his own name! — there should be sparks taking it beyond pleasant radio filler, but there aren’t.
[6]
Mo Kim: You know those songs where the guest roster is longer than a Wrestlemania lineup? They don’t work so well when everybody sounds like slight variations on the same bleating goat. It’s fortunate that the instrumental moves from sound to sound quickly enough to take some of the weight off the singers.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: The fact that the hook apparently required two separate singers makes me think like a Dickensian beast-advocate of corporate downsizing, but it’s been too snowy and gross for too long for me not to overrate a lazy summer nod-along.
[5]
David Sheffieck: If you’d asked me what artist I least expected to see pop up in 2015 I wouldn’t have said Shaggy because I genuinely forgot he existed. Which makes this all the more fun: a romp that juxtaposes his thick delivery against much more sprightly vocalists in typical but still successful fashion, while combining genres and sounds in a way that sounds gloriously like global pop.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Shaggy without his senses of irony or panache is a hard thing to entertain. He’s nominally the lead, probably because it had to be someone. But his co-stars are better at pouting along with the (mercifully unprocessed) guitar. This slots well into the sneaky-important lineage of 21st-century pop-soca. I really want to get my radio fixed.
[7]