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thesinglesjukebox · 3 months

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LIL NAS X - "J CHRIST"

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You know who ELSE hit 'em with something vi-i-ral? (No, not us. Yet.)

4.44

Nortey Dowuona: Mark 8:30: Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. Todrick Hall, who slowly built up a career from performing on cruises like the Royal Caribbean and at amusement parks, went on an extensive press run to promote his Wizard of Oz themed album in 2017 and spoke about himself as a figure who could inspire young gay black boys like him. And to this day, I have never seen critical engagement with his work in any of the spaces I read criticism -- in fact, on this very website, he's been used as an example of pandering! Lil Nas X is in the same predicament. He's now pandering by reminiscing on his old glories of causing controversy: a tweeter who needs to stick to Twitter/Bluesky/Mastodon/his mama named him Twitter imma call him Twitter; a forgotten controversy of 2021 who had a song with NBA YoungBoy that even NBA's core fans don't remember; the token rapper for people who have rightly sworn off most of rap despite being a pop singer. He no longer has the grace of being given a chance to try for the pop career he so desperately wanted -- he is now already a relic. And the strange off-key pulsing added by Gestaffelstein, who previously handed KaYYCYY a grace period of Kanye-buoyed attention that evaporated when he demanded his due credit and had The Weeknd doing his best to sully their names by failing to properly dom, does not make their analog-first techniques more of a winner with a less abandoned or embarrassing figure. It Was Written, the sophomore album for Big Nas, was planned to be a hard street record with Marley Marl, but he kept putting it off, not heading out to meet, not finishing songs, hearing them on the real in the world, which led to him instead getting Steve Stoute and the Trackmasters to make him shiny pop rap that could sell. Every choice Big Nas has made has followed this format. The hopeful reading of this little anecdote is that Lil Nas will, after the flop of "J Christ" and having to apologize for the pointless, homophobic backlash, change tack and not hit us with something viral, but hit us with something good. [4]

Leah Isobel: The Lil Nas X backlash was inevitable. I wasn't big on Montero, but that album's promotional cycle did an admirable job of balancing big thematic ideas with controversy-generating stunts and sticky, immediate hooks; watching that shit happen was like watching someone tightrope walk over a lion's den. It was impossible to believe that he was doing it, and yet there he was, the "Wranglers on my boooooty" guy, parlaying Twitter standom into actual stardom. But stans are able to weaponize anonymity in order to judge without being judged (by others, at least) in return. After earning two #1s off the same album, Lil Nas definitively lost any freedom from judgment, while still using stan tactics -- hyperbole, irony, detachment, camp -- to deliver serious ideas. The public is thus split into those who don't understand his language and think his provocations are dangerous and empty (conservative Twitter), and those who do understand his language and think his provocations are boring and empty (gay Twitter). What "J Christ" indicates is that both camps are wrong. The return to "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)"'s religious iconography indicates an artistic interest in interrogating who is allowed exaltation and why; the return to "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)"'s terse, two-chord harshness and yell-sung hooks indicates an artistic palette. While I'm sure Lil Nas X knows that titling a song "J Christ" after releasing a video where he gives Satan a lap dance will cause outrage for some and eyerolls for others, I don't think he's aiming to be provocative at all, but rather to reestablish himself as an actual musician instead of a random Barb with a record deal. I hope it works out for him! The song is okay. [5]

Ian Mathers: If you were wondering whether any of us here at TSJ would need a reminder that some people may, in fact, consider this song/video offensive, I'm happy to admit to it. Not going to get into an essay on which types of references to ol' oily Josh are considered appropriate and which aren't, but certainly in the comments you can see a fair bit of motivated reasoning at work. Anyway, once again counting my blessings in terms of not having any particular baggage there, I can just appreciate that Lil Nas X continues to keep his singles compact and catchy as hell. I imagine the meta/self-aware level hits better if you like the rest of the song, too. [8]

Rachel Saywitz: Like the son of god himself, Lil Nas X is back with a not-so-VIYEEYIYEEROAAALLL mid-tier track. There’s a bit of heft to the beat that I don’t mind, but little else to grab my attention, and the verses are pretty atrocious—you can’t just make up rhymes like “eizz-ight” and “wiz-ay” without any lyrical payoff! A lot has been said about whether Lil Nas X is just milking his past reputation as an attention seeker, sacrificing quality artistry with cheap shock value. The thing is, quality artistry hasn’t exactly been his best trait, but “J Christ” and its video aren't even delivering shock value—they hint at virality but don’t actually do anything to achieve it. Also, I won’t take points off for biblical inaccuracy, but let’s be honest—most of the “celebrities” featured in the music video are not going to heaven. +1 for the much-improved choreo though! [5]

Jacob Satter: The returns on the Lil Nas X project continue to outpace expectations at near Oppy levels. Who among us in 2020 expected this kid to be even slightly relevant in the post-COVID radio landscape? Yet here we are, in a world where Montero gets two million spins a day riding a riff a beginner piano student can play with one finger. The pearl-clutcher of a video obviously represents most of the viral appeal; remove the provocative imagery and you're left with little more than a thudding bounce and a nasal whinny. But I like a thudding bounce and a nasal whinny! [6]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Bitch, be humble. [4]

Dave Moore: I will always root for Lil Nas X -- I think "Old Town Road" was world-changing, and the follow-ups showed charm and occasional brilliance. He's very good at internet. But I wonder if for all his savvy he fundamentally doesn't really know what he's doing? Here he's riffing over a "Humble"-type beat, and it's just a mess, not to say bad (he's never been bad). But I'll give him a pass, now and maybe forever. You do you, friend. [6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: “Humble” already sounded dated by the time it came out, so it is fascinating to hear a track that—seven years on—makes it sound like it actually aged well. [3]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Sort of a reverse Streisand Effect at work here – the more he tries to give us something "viral" (geriatric phrasing, btw) the worse he is at achieving that goal. This is not just a step down from his hits but from his misses, too; the last time he tried this follow-up hit shtick he at least got Tay Keith & Take A Daytrip to produce, not Gesaffelstein doing a middling 2018 Tay Keith impression. The raps are uninspired, but they've never been too inspired – what really recedes here are all of the trappings, both musical and cultural, that allowed his 2021 run to succeed in spite of his limitations. At least give us a hook! [3]

Mark Sinker: It’s not even like I’d know if something actually was viral-as-success these days — who does know this? how do we now agree on this? — but there’s something just a bit too smug about the claim, which the jigsaw of the languid here-I-am elements of his voice and and then the beep-boop grind of the close don’t actually dispel. V-i-i-i-i-ral. Don’t say this. [5]

Andrew Karpan: I’ve always had the somewhat contrarian opinion that Lil Nas X is actually out there making music that is interesting and moving on its own terms, which is probably why I can’t relate to the criticism that he’s now simply trying too hard. “J Christ” is a song of pure pop star resentment, a refusal to engage that comes off as slight and inauthentic but nonetheless feels like the point of the larger Nas X proposition. Similarly, the riff on Mike Will’s “HUMBLE.” beat feels strangely inspired, like a carrying on of a conversation about rejecting the demands of a certain kind of performance. [7]

Katherine St. Asaph: Critics seem reluctant to consider Lil Nas X as a pop star rather than a living meme. Yes, Lil Nas X also seems a little reluctant to do so, but it's remarkable how much of the critical reception of "J Christ" treads the same topical ground as SatanicPanicTok. Isn't part of what distinguishes a music critic from a tabloid aggregator an openness to musical technique and a determination to be trolled less? Is this a delayed backlash to the pop conversation getting crashed by former Twitter stans? (If so, be realistic about where the next generation of pop stars will be coming from.) Is Lil Nas X just that good at trolling? Because he's not that bad at being a pop star. "J Christ" was produced with Black Skinhead's Gesaffelstein -- once the subject of glowing profiles about "[rejecting] bullshit and [pushing] his artistic vision forward," subsequent bullshit notwithstanding -- and has at least as expensive-sounding a sound as, say, Doja Cat. The song not only has a hook, but almost exactly the same hook as "Old Town Road," just sped up and sproingified. If anything, people should be calling this a retread! Speaking of retreads, as for the much maligned "viral" line: Kendrick Lamar's "HUMBLE," which this very much bites, contains the oft-quoted (and, unless I'm misremembering, not much maligned) line "my left stroke just went viral." It is at least somewhat plausible that Montero is deliberately referencing it, as Eminem did before him. (Then again, Lil Nas X made a TikTok exhaustively detailing every reference in "J Christ," and that isn't on it -- but then again, the TikTok only covers the video, perhaps out of a suspicion that video parodies are less likely to draw the expensive ire of the Marvin Gaye estates of the world than musical ones; and also he might be trolling.) And I like the beat. I like the hooks (but would like them out of my head at some point soon). I like the magisterial costumes and the choreography, forgiving quick cuts and all -- if Tate McRae can get plaudits for her very mid choreo, surely this should be in the conversation too? I like how Lil Nas X comes off as his own sports announcer on a stream that's 1 second behind -- is he gonna hit 'em with the high note? (Though the high note could use some more hit; it's not exactly a Mike Breen bang.) I liked Lady Gaga's "Judas," too. As a standalone song. [6]

Tim de Reuse: I am going to exclusively talk about the hook in this blurb. Fourteen notes: EDEDEDEDEDEDCA. Bouncing up and down, a nauseating ricochet, and then resolving, over and over again, slamming itself into a dour minor chord over and over. The little B-flat in the bassline adds a horrible sickly color that clashes with the playground-chant melody, giving it absolutely no foothold in the rest of the song. The effect is discomfort: the melodic equivalent of not being able to get comfortable in bed no matter how many times you turn yourself over. It is audacious in its anti-hook properties. It sounds like it desperately does not want to get stuck in your head. Indeed, the only thing I will remember about this song is how pitifully average a pitch that "high-igh" note is. [1]

Alfred Soto: The most conventional track on which Lil Nas X has ever rapped, "J Christ" demonstrates that should he have released it in 2017 it might still have crossed over. Those high notes sound like no one else's, and when he croons it still rocks me on my heels. I wouldn't want more tracks like "J Christ," but he's going for brand preservation here. [6]

Taylor Alatorre: "I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity." The long arm of pop history has so elevated John Lennon's "more popular than Jesus" remark that its surrounding context has fallen into obscurity, even though the quoted sentence is the one that first made it onto a U.S. magazine cover. The full quote drives home that Lennon, more than questions of theology, was consumed with the idea of longevity – if a modest Nazarene carpenter had managed to forge an unbroken chain of recognition and influence for nearly two millennia, would the same be true of the boys who sang "Can't Buy Me Love"? In the decades after the Beatles broke up, there was Jesus Christ Superstar and Life of Brian, and "Like a Prayer" and South Park, and by 2013, the shock factor of Lennon's remark had worn off to the point that the title of Kanye West's Yeezus was one of the least controversial things about it. He released a song titled "I Am a God," listing "God" as a featured artist, and all anyone wanted to talk about was the damn croissants! So what exactly is the problem with Lil Nas X baptizing himself in the same secularized Gospel as countless creatives before him? Well, mainly it's because "J Christ" isn't actually doing that. In fact, it very purposefully isn't doing much at all other than serving as a skeletal blueprint for a self-directed music video (which, in full disclosure, I deliberately avoided watching until after this blurb was published). The song's title is not in reference to a creative resurrection, which is nowhere in evidence anyway, but instead to the fact that the world had gone 15 months without hearing any new Lil Nas X music. 15 whole months! Does that even qualify as a hiatus, much less one that's worthy of analogy to the Pascal mystery? Similarly, the awkward truncation of the Messiah's name is neither a targeted act of blasphemy nor a veiled assertion of His divinity – it's something that had to happen in order for "get the gays hype" to work. No doubt this particular juxtaposition was intentional, but as braggadocio it falls flat, because in 2024 there is no pop star on the planet who is incapable of getting at least some cohort of gays hype. As outrage bait, though, it checks the box, in an "I have read the terms and conditions" sort of way. More than anything, and in spite of its striving, surface-level brashness, "J Christ" sadly diminishes Lil Nas X into a smaller and pettier-seeming figure than ever before. While Lennon and Kanye were insecure about how their earthly legacies would measure up to the Greatest Story Ever Told, Lil Nas X seems primarily worried about how long his face will stay up on YouTube's trending page. He shrinks underneath the shadows of past provocateurs, wanting to be Kanye without wanting to be Kanye, borrowing Gesaffelstein as if expecting a yassified "Black Skinhead," then somehow not telling him to start over when he serves up this bloodless "HUMBLE." rehash. He tries to act as his own paparazzi, asking the questions he would like us to ask of him, in the same way anxious teenagers used to write anonymous questions to themselves on Tumblr. And he forgets the cardinal rule that if you mention Mariah and "high note" in the same song, you damn well better bless us with an actual, no-holds-barred high note attempt. "J Christ" is two-and-half minutes of evasion, self-negation, and fretful, aimless gesturing, all united under the theme of "except not really." It's politically motivated heresy, except not really; irreverent self-parody, except not really; a bid for hip hop royalty, except not really. A rebirth, yes, if regression counts. [0]

Will Adams: In fairness, it's hilarious to imagine if the actual second coming of Jesus Christ looked like this: reliant on old tricks, superficially flashy, nothing much to say. [4]

Edward Okulicz: "J Christ" has the sound of an artist who's looking in the rear-view mirror at his improbable peaks behind him as he drives, while simultaneously trying to draw them on a canvas. Lil Nas X excelled as a practitioner of épater, but I think the world must be so used to that that it feels like it wouldn't even have been shocking in 2004, let alone 2024. Basically, a victim of his own unapologetically ambitious, queer, ludicrous success. Maybe there's nowhere left to go? [3]

Thomas Inskeep: I suspect the harshest review one could give LNX is also the most accurate one for "J Christ": basic. [4]

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