Tom: You may remember Childish Gambino as providing the dark and (as I called it) “plot-relevent” rap bit in Leona Lewis’ latest single. Well, he’s doing the “feat.” rounds, and I was rather hoping that he’d be bringing the same style to this.
Tom: Nope.
Tim: No…
Tom: Which is a shame, because I was – unusally for either of us – rather hoping for a decent rap bit here. The track needed one: it’s occupying a dodgy middle-ground between genres and seems to get lost about half way through. I can’t really work out what it’s meant to be.
Tim: I think it’s trying for the standard inspirational “we’re all great” vibe, but has unfortunately come at just the wrong time. It might normally work, but what with the Olympics having just gone, we’ve all had our fill of inspirational tracks, and know they can be better than this.
Tom: Something about the track seems off, Tim, but I don’t know what. Can you work it out what it is?
Tim: It might be his voice – even with the vaguely decent backing this has, it still sounds more suited to a Radio 2 playlist than to anything current. Yes, the rap brings it back a notch, but that needs to be there for more than just a standard breakdown for this to work properly and be relevant. It’s old and it’s bland – that’s what’s off.