The first three songs are adequate enough. If nothing else, they show that Billy Joel still has a knack for songcraft after all these years. The River starts to go downhill from there. He’s swimming hard; All About Soul is backed by what sounds like a full gospel choir; but about half of this album will drift you off to sleep.
my rating : 3 of 5
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2017
si.com
Eminem is only human, so he makes mistakes. A big one was putting Beyoncé on this song. Put aside her humdrum melodies. A top celebrity crooner with no real connection to Eminem representing him on a song about his own waning popularity makes little sense conceptually. Bring back the humdrum singing; the chorus sounds mawkish and out of place; and the combination makes for a record that’s ironically unimpressive.
The Stan rapper, still my favorite after all these years, reveals introspective worries about letting his fans down. “I’m doing my best to not ruin your expectations,” he writes with a pencil and paper like it’s 1999. Somebody buy this guy a MacBook. But it’s not his verses that disappoint this time around. It’s the corny guest-reliant platform he’s presenting them on. The old (young) Eminem would’ve drowned Beyoncé in that Water.
my rating : 3 of 5
2017
