Deen is currently teaching a class on Copyright Law and early Juicy J cassette tapes at Rice University.
Maybe I’m too beholden to conventional song structure, but I’m more than a little irritated that we don’t really hear Juicy J on what’s ostensibly his own single for the first TWO (2) minutes of a four minute song. That’s absurd. It’s not as if The Weeknd is some surefire commercial juggernaut that guarantees a single’s success – at least not here in the States – so I don’t understand this shit.
Even more confusing is the fact that Wiz Khalifa tried this exact same trick with his Weeknd collaboration “Remember You” and that shit failed miserably. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but that song didn’t exactly set the world on fire or anything like that. Both “One of those Nights” and “Remember You” are essentially The Weeknd tracks with fairly limited rappers shoehorned on to the end and neither track is bad, but they feel really pointless. At least Wiz had the good sense to add on a bridge of sorts in lieu of a proper second verse. Juicy J spit one decent, but standard one “Juicy Fits All” verse and settled for some programmed “YEAH HO!” adlibs all over the song. Utterly disappointing.
Juicy J’s main selling point is his energy and I can understand diversifying your sound, but this song would have been better off as an album track. Between this and the Wiz shit, the only logical explanation is that some suit somewhere is really insistent on ensuring that The Weeknd becomes a bonafide star outchea in the US. That’s gotta be it, because this shit doesn’t make any fucking sense as a single. Fuck. I really hate when great analogies escape me before I can write them down. This is like… nope, still nothing. Bummer.
I’m still fairly confident that Stay Trippy, if it ever actually sees a retail release, will be a solid album. My spirit animal won’t fail me now. Juicy J is too good at his job to drop a wack album, but between this Weeknd song and the Jeezy song masquerading as his second single, I’m kinda disappointed. The OG needs to quit the experiments and cut 10 tracks each with Mike Will Made It and Lex Luger. There’ll be a guaranteed smash or two in the bunch. Problem solved…
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