Atlanta teens make a late run for the year-ends…
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[7.50]
John Seroff: Every now and again, I get to thinking that what hip-pop needs right now is more flutes, less autotune, more handclaps, less gunshots, more sitar, less badly played electric guitar, more Egg Shakers, less bloodshed, more elastic bass, less DJ drop-ins, more corny Soulja Boy intros, less slinging crack, more Mr. Collipark, less irony, more echo effect, less making it rain, more pretty voices, less pussy poppin’, more Left-Eye style rap breaks, less droppin’ it to the floor, more sweetness, less screaming, more gentleness, less world weariness, more kindness, less bullshit.
[9]
Frank Kogan: Flute plays and girls grow faint, succumbing to wild thoughts, though without losing their delicacy and dignity, flute-inspired delirium having its own protocols.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: The music shuffles along in a rather diffident way, and the relaxed singing fits well with it. To be honest I’d have preferred it to be a little more grabbing and forceful, but it’s entirely likeable.
[7]
Alex Macpherson: On “Delirious”, Atlantan teenage duo Vistoso Bosses proudly uphold the lineage of the R&B first-crush summer swoon, probably my favourite aesthetic in pop. Like its predecessors — Ghost Town DJs’ “My Boo”, KP & Envyi’s “Shorty Swing My Way”, Lumidee’s “Never Leave You” — “Delirious” sounds almost as though its performers are singing quietly to themselves; it’s a private, intimate moment accidentally transmitted to the outside world. Vistoso Bosses affect an aloof, airy distance in the face of their own swelling emotions; tentative but so certain, their awareness of the risk inherent in giving one’s heart away makes them as vulnerable as they are self-possessed. (Though Soulja Boy fails to detract from the overall gorgeousness, it’s the version without him which is preferable.)
[10]
David Moore: Storytime piccolo plus Soulja Boy in the spotlight doing a sort of free-verse interpolation of his recent hitz sans beat is some straight up Shatneresque performance art thing. But no, there is a song here — I’m not sure who Vistoso Bosses are (I guess the original of this came out earlier in the year?) but the lead singer here is a pretty straightforward unremarkable post-Rihanna going through the motions, albeit prettily.
[6]
Anthony Easton: This is really pretty and hides its ambitions well. Plus the Vistoso Bosses are so much more interesting then the one anaemic voice by Soulja Boy.
[7]
Chuck Eddy: I have serious problems with Soulja’s monotone whenever he tries to be sincere, in this song and “Kiss Me On Phone” — Always feels like he’s being forced to do his homework, when he’d rather be off putting cherry bombs in mailboxes or whatever pranks teens do these days. The Bosses’ prefab sweetness here somewhat makes up for it, though they look way more adorable in their photos — from Atlanta; so what are they, the new two-girl TLC? I could live with that, probably.
[6]
Ian Mathers: The two rapped verses (especially the Soulja Boy one, which seems to just be here to attract attention to “Delirious” and almost did the opposite in my case) are just distractions from the sparse, glowing, incredibly pretty production. I think it’s flute-based (real or not, who knows?) and the effect on the nicely sung chorus is practically pastoral. I could happily listen to a remix of this that just gives us the chorus for four minutes, or twice as long.
[8]