Tom Ewing: This is gorgeously trifling, all four players – Keri, Kanye, Ne-Yo, and the bouncy robo on keys and drums – flirting with each other and you, never hinting at any commitment beyond the next ten seconds’ entertainment. Fucking Kanye, though! You can feel that terrible line coming and start anticipating it earlier and earlier, until eventually you just spend the entire song in the brace position preparing to flinch.
A pity: Keri is as elusively chameleonic as ever, but her song is firm and quietly resolute. In his second guest verse, he actually rhymes “OMG” with “woe is me” – a totally unacceptable decision which is definitely the nadir of something or other. He absolutely kills at the kind of vulnerable arrogance “Knock You Down” calls for, and while Hilson backs him up well, that’s what it feels as if she’s doing backing him up.Īlex Macpherson: The day that Kanye starts using a dummy, or maybe duct tape, as a fashion accessory can’t come soon enough. Ian Mathers: Hilson sings a hell of a nice hook, but I’d be happier if she and West switched places in terms of the time they get (and I’m not a huge Kanye fan normally).
Keri, Kanye, and Shaffer barely acknowledge each other, let alone display any chemistry. Greene: Other than the illustrious roster and Ne-Yo’s hilarious couplet - “I used to be commander-in-chief of my pimp ship, flying high/Until I met this pretty little missile that shot me out the sky” - I’m not sure what’s supposed to be notable about this. And I just knocked off another point listening to Kanye go on and on. The verses ain’t so hot either, but Ne-Yo’s is the lone bright spot, not so much because Keri’s bad but that he’s better. All the lead up to that first chorus makes it feel like a hit, but when that monotonous refrain kicks in the whole thing sinks like a stone. Īl Shipley: It’s always confusing, if not downright frustrating, when this kind of starpower is assembled for a single, but no-one involved thinks to write a halfway decent hook. “Knock You Down” is admirable, but if it had the single-mindedness of, say, this week’s The-Dream/Mariah collaboration, it would be an easy. This disjointed, multivocal approach works within the postmodern bounds of hip-hop, but R&B still requires a dominant performer directing the music. The result is a song about an intensely personal emotional experience with no actual person experiencing the emotion. Hilson, Ne-Yo and West perform “Knock You Down” as if they are entirely unaware anyone else appears on the track with them. I’m no fan of Theodor Adorno, but his Frankfurt School critique of popular culture at least acknowledged that assembly-line production requires pseudo-individualization to work. But the track as a whole is oddly unfocused. Jonathan Bradley: All the ingredients are present for this to be an absolute monster: soaring synth stabs a valiant, heart-tugging lyric and top-notch performances from all three vocalists (Kanye West’s “This is bad, real bad/Michael Jackson” is possibliy the best of many highlights). I’ve rarely understood his appeal, but he communicates a depth of emotion here that I’ve never found in his solo songs. When the drum-and-bass rhythm comes in at 1:00, it’s an exhilarating rush. Martin Kavka: There’s a lot to hate about this: the first minute is filled with keyboard stabs that feel like Nazis goosestepping on your belly after a filling Passover meal, and at times the track seems to be too cluttered for its own good.
Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment.Email (song suggestions/writer enquiries).