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[3.82]
Will Adams: As a snapshot of the current pop landscape, this hits the nail on the head. There’s the pumping piano house that deifies the weekend and there’s the stoopid trap with a twisting synth line. But as a song, it’s too disjointed and long, its parts showing without any effort to cover up. Still, it’s mostly free of will’s lyrical fuckery, so this gets a boost.
[5]
Scott Mildenhall: This is some serious troll.i.aming. It wouldn’t be surprising to find there are several QI klaxons buried among the mess that envelops the more enjoyable piano house bits in anticipation of the many sneers its title is going to elicit. will remains will: a conduit for his production, 2NE1 perhaps best left to handle it alone, while apl.de.trop. The best thing is will knows he’s going to win regardless of ridicule just as much as he believes he’s some kind of futuristic trailblazer, and to be fair to him, by the time the song’s finished it actually does feel like the future: a dim, distant one that a look at the playing time reveals is only five minutes away.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: An incoherent splay of a byline (pick one: Black Eyed Peas ft. 2NE1 or will.i.am ft. apl.de.ap, Park Bom and CL) for an incoherent splay of a song. will.i.am’s track suggests he listened to a lot of Justice this time around, perhaps interspersed with Spotify ads of hippie guitars and synth beep-boops. Bom’s chorus sounds more like a plaint, like maybe she’s one of those millennials explaining that she really does do work, so many unfulfilling weeks of it. (“I Gotta Feeling” hinted at that too, but I also heard it more often en commute to temping than at parties.) CL, blessedly, comes off like she’s entirely unaware she isn’t a megastar to whoever’s listening to #willpower (or, I guess, U.S. top 40); apl.de.ap comes off like he’s entirely given up on the same. I can’t imagine anyone liking this whole mess — or hating it all based on anything but residual bad will(.i.am). At least the good parts are good?
[6]
Iain Mew: At this point 2NE1 seem like the biggest ‘careful what you wish for’ for anyone hoping for more Western success for K-Pop. Some of the response to “Gangnam Style” was infuriating but fame doesn’t seem to have harmed Psy’s music any. Even if you don’t accept the magnificence of Wonder Girls’ failed crossover “The DJ is Mine”, they kept up plenty of other options. 2NE1, though, they’ve released almost nothing for two years and if this is at all to blame then it’s even sadder. More branding exercise than song, it’s embarrassingly short on ideas or ways to use them effectively. CL has done raps in English twenty times better on Japanese singles, and Park Bom could be almost anyone. Even G-Dragon & TOP’s Pixie Lott feature was better.
[3]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Ironically, will.i.am was a lot more fun before he started espousing the virtues of the party life and spouting catchphrases like “turnt up!” with the emotional investment of a boulder. There’s a genuinely worrying moment on “Gettin’ Dumb” when he chants “we gettin’ dumb!” alongside 2NE1’s Park Bom. The lyric morphs into a ghostly echo, a shame-spiralling ode to numbed-up good times. Adams’ professionalism has granted fellow Black Eyed Pea Apl.de.ap and himself the dubious ability to disconnect from any possible joy – he sings about weekends as if the concept of weekends have ceased to exist. (Maybe they don’t have them on Mars yet.) On the other side of the professional spectrum are Bom and her groupmate, CL. Both graduates of the relentless K-Pop cottage industry, they share a gift in knowing how to get the best out of a song, no matter how milquetoast or hacky. Bom handles the hook with her usual coolly pitched vocals while CL barks and sneers lines like “GET A WIG, BITCH” like it’s the most important thing she’ll ever say. They work hard to find the heart hidden in the machine while their host stares blankly into the distance.
[5]
Anthony Easton: This is a lot like the official Iron Man remake with Chinese actors, where the idea of an official product and a bootleg product have become an exercise in post-modern philosophizing and not much else. I wonder if it will be as much of a bust?
[4]
Jer Fairall: Coming from the auteur of the lowest common denominator, the title suggests a proud acknowledgement of what he’s spent the last decade doing to pop music. Call it a victory lap if you will, but there’s still no reason that it has to go on for over five fucking minutes.
[2]
Alfred Soto: will.i.am has nerve cautioning us to watch out for the dumdum: it’s what he’s introduced to every pop single in which he’s gotten a credit with the exception of Britney’s “Big Fat Bass” and “I Gotta Feeling.” The keyboard swirls and machinated gewgaws are K-pop by someone unable to duplicate what he inspired several continents away.
[1]
Brad Shoup: Even by his standards, will.i.am drives the title into a semiotic ditch. Even tangled in digital curtains, Bom projects a casual forthrightness. She approaches “gettin’ dumb” like a cancellation, not a catchphrase. It’s the right approach. will.i.am has no new tricks (unless you count the 96kbps New Age guitar splice); it actually seems he’s taken a couple off the table. His melodies aren’t gummy, apl.de.ap’s verse comes piped in from the Republic of Salò, the drop just kinda hangs. I can’t even draw pleasure from CL’s cussing! This must be what Andrew W.K.’s debut sounded like to nerds: they thought it was fun taken way too seriously. They had no fucking idea what was waiting in the Negative Zone.
[4]
Patrick St. Michel: My immediate reaction to “Gettin’ Dumb” is how little I actually hate it…or should I say, actually like it. This is a will.i.am song, which immediately made me brace for the worst, but also one featuring that one guy from The Black Eyed Peas (his verse is definitely the worst thing here, let’s not talk about it). But I tensed up before hitting play on this because it features 2NE1…my favorite K-Pop act and one of my favorite musical acts going anywhere in the world today…and I thought please please please don’t let this suck. 2NE1 and will.i.am worked on another song that most 2NE1 fans seem to view as “not canon,” an opinion I share. Excuse my fanboying out…but I think 2NE1 are every bit as good as any American pop artist going, and I want them to be big. But yeah…working with will.i.am, yeep. This song isn’t the obvious “I Gotta Feeling” rehash I expected when hearing Bom and will’s rising verses. It swivels away from bombast and instead settles on these tipsy synths that actually sound nice, and leave plenty of room for CL to rap. Yet that’s the point where I’m most conflicted…I think CL handles herself well enough here (I mean, she’s up against apl.de.ap) but I think she’s capable of something a bit more attention grabbing. I like how this doesn’t sound like typical will.i.am and finds half of 2NE1 doing just fine, but I also think they are capable of so much more.
[6]
Sonya Nicholson: Should have kept this one in the vault.
[1]