The Singles Jukebox

KATY B - WHAT LOVE IS MADE OF [5.88] We’re tough because...

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:30:21 +0100

KATY B - WHAT LOVE IS MADE OF
[5.88]

We’re tough because we love…

Alfred Soto: Alright already: Katy’s gonna show you she can sing a straightforward dance track with all the fixin’s. To make sure you’re not asleep, she goes apeshit over the outro.
[7]

Iain Mew: You have to say that Katy’s timing is fantastic. Releasing a song with the line “say I’m the special one” just as Mourinho speculation reaches fever pitch? Perfect. As for riding the house wave, since she seemed to be doing fine before that it might just mean more competition, but this single suggests she should still have the right blend of relateable and dazzling to stand out.
[7]

Brad Shoup: “Something about your style/The clothes you wear/You get it right”: these are the sorts of lines I could enjoy from a singer with bite, nonchalance, ego. Katy, to the extent I know her singles, has evinced none of these, so this becomes just more passable house filler.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: The stars seem to have aligned for Katy B. With the growing “dance music not made by David Guetta is back!” narrative in British pop there’s been no more fertile an environment for her to release music in a long, long time - RD must be kicking themselves. Given that, this is an interesting way to return. Lacking the warmth and yearning the lyrics demand - lyrics that include the lines “And I could stay like this for days; looking at your beautiful face,” which might have been deemed laughable in the hands of a lesser vocalist, or less respected artist — it’s understated to the point of album-trackness. In “Katy On A Mission” she had one hell of a debut single, and she could have chose to make a similarly entrancing entrance this time around, a declaration of her claim to the chart throne. But in the main, that’s not her style.
[6]

Will Adams: The chorus doesn’t do justice to the titular hook, the gummy bassline disrupting the glassy house that the verses present. Katy’s voice remains the star, cool in the lower register and cooler when belting. Sonically, “What Love Is Made Of” isn’t entirely necessary as long as the superior “Aaliyah” is around, but I can still be charitable to those chord stabs.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Fantastic sounds, great voice — it’s Katy B, what do you expect? — but the song’s dead inside, and the lifelessness is contagious. A vocal as powerful as the one on “Witches Brew” or as sweet as “Movement” or as determined as “Katy on a Mission” would have brought it back to life, but the chorus is all detached promises without payoff.
[5]

Crystal Xia: This doesn’t pop in the same way that “Broken Record” or “Aaliyah” do, and the transition from chorus back to verse is a little abrupt and awkward. Still, let’s be real: an okay Katy B track is still a good track. None of these features that Katy finds enthralling in her dude that she’s describing are new or original (his smile, eyes, style, mind), but Katy has a way of making everything sound fresh. You can catch me sidewalk dancing to this, mouthing along to the words on a beautiful spring day.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Two years ago it might have flown as a third or fourth single, but two years ago she didn’t have Jessie Ware nipping at her heels and remaking the case for velvet gloves over iron voices and careful production in dance music. Here’s hoping she has something either more thoughtful or more exciting up her sleeve.
[5]

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KYARY PAMYU PAMYU - INVADER INVADER [7.33] It’s...

Tue, 21 May 2013 07:16:00 +0100

KYARY PAMYU PAMYU - INVADER INVADER
[7.33]

It’s critically-acclaimed female global dance sensations Tuesday!

Patrick St. Michel: Joseph Campbell’s monomyth pattern starts with a hero finding themselves in an ordinary place, before receiving the “call to adventure,” which will thrust them into alien worlds. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s earliest songs concerned themselves with childlike glee, bouncing around on a fuel made up of beauty products, sweets and single syllables. Yet on October 2012 single “Fashion Monster,” Kyary starts growing up, and becomes aware of how some people perceive her home, Harajuku, and the fashion coming from it. It’s self-awareness that signals growing up, and her next single served as an official coming-of-age celebration. Then she dove into her home nation’s past, which prepared her for her journey to an unknown land. It’s appropriate “Invader Invader” debuted live during her brief United States tour this Spring because it’s all about spreading the Kyary goodness around the globe. “Let’s conquer the world!” goes part of the chorus, and Kyary’s probably the only Japanese pop star going, give or take Perfume, who can actually do what no J-Pop act has done before — actually get decent attention outside of Asia. “Invader” features all the hallmarks of a great Kyary song — ear-worm chorus, bleepy touches, a bouncy tempo, a lighthearted feel. Yet “Invader” also finds her refusing to pander, avoiding the mistakes of Pink Lady and Hikaru Utada. And yeah, I see the brostep breakdown, but that’s part of the reason this gets bumped up one more point. The drop, along with the elementary-school-recorder-class vibe and Kyary’s presentation in general, is confrontational, “Invader” pushing everything that defines Kyary (pop, “kawaii”-ness, a touch of the grotesque manifest as wub-wub) to the front. People in Japan and abroad love her because of these things… but lots of people also hate her for these very same qualities. Here, she makes like the best and brushes those folks aside and just does Kyary. Hell of a start in the unknown.
[10]

Alfred Soto: Wow — late nineties Stereolab played at 45 rpm. I’d tolerate the scrunches and whooshes and tricky rhythm changes if the vocals didn’t grate. Terrific guitar outro though.
[4]

Anthony Easton: The rough-textured (almost noise) brackish sounds that come around the two minute mark, distance the cute for cute sake vocals of the rest of the track, while the brief hint of sped-up bells around the end of the song rachet up to a level of almost uncomfortable parody. The distance from genre and the falling completely into genre, competing against each other, suggests a kind of arch formalism that has not quite decayed.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Chiptune, brostep, maybe a little Marnie Stern: Yasutaka Nakata always seems to locate placidity in the funnest places. Here, he hacks out a chill space after awesomely annoying ringtone klaxons and brutalist guitar lines. “I guess I’m an invader,” grins Kyary, but with a track this teeming, she’s operating in stealth.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: YMO as seven year old girls married to dragons. Best part: with almost any rudimentary sound editing software you can edit out all the dubstep bits.
[7]

Iain Mew: I’ll start with the dubstep, because I sort of have to. First, it is a very Nakata bit of dubstep. It’s still pleasurably abrasive, but it’s also meticulous and controlled, just a few noises stabilised by a constant beat that carries on after. Secondly, the moment when the noise ends and is replaced by the cheeriest twinkle of piano is amazing, playing up the comic absurdity of a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu song with a dubstep section and then riding it out flawlessly. The preview of that moment after the first chorus works the same trick just as well on a smaller scale. Elsewhere is actually where the most chaos happens, from Kyary’s “whoa whoa whoa” stretching the tune to its limits to the broken merry-go-round synth sections, every bit a surprise and delight. In some ways it’s finally the song to match her visuals, and it’s probably her best single to date.
[9]

Will Adams: No surprise, Nakata is just as skilled at dubstep as he is at the dancepop that first caught my attention with Perfume. “Invader Invader” is cut from the same cloth as “Fashion Monster,” its uptempo bounce supporting a chorus that asks you to jump off your feet. The winning moment, however, is the second verse, when the harder half-time beats meet with beautiful piano arpeggios. Kyary continues to win me over with her maximalist pop.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Her sonic aesthetic finally catches up to the gonzo of her visual aesthetic. It’s fitting, in a way, that dubstep is what gets her there: the most vulgarly lead-footed sound in modern pop still retains its synapse-scrambling potentialities when juxtaposed against the clockwork sugar-rush of Kyary’s baseline sound.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: The sound of five toy motion detectors cheering each other on as they overclock.
[7]

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VAMPIRE WEEKEND - YA HEY [5.33] And not a one of these guys is...

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:00:02 +0100

VAMPIRE WEEKEND - YA HEY
[5.33]

And not a one of these guys is named Jason, but let’s pretend…

Katherine St Asaph: “You know how some couples have get-out-of-jail-free cards where you’re OK to hypothetically hook up with whichever celebrity? Society should have that concept except for punching people in the face. And one of mine would be Ezra from Vampire Weekend.” — me, on Gchat, grousing about these fucks before hearing the album. Given this, the prospect of Ezra and co. invoking the Lumineers or Outkast (or DragonForce! …nah) for the wiseass portion of their twentysomething existential crisis was not particularly compelling. And lo and behold, Ezra and co. bellyaching about Babylon like they just heard a Snoop Lion song are not particularly compelling — but either the frustrating or relieving thing about Vampire Weekend is they’re one of those bands where the music really does outweigh the annoyance. Here, it’s done with some pretty traditional tools — obligatory choirs seldom sound so celestial.
[6]

Alfred Soto: It’s about the Lord God, apparently — Yahweh. I award Ezra Koenig no bonus points for lyrical ambition because we knew he was a smart fucker already, as at least nine other, better tracks on Modern Vampires of the City prove. Horrid chipmunk-processed title hook aside, the track sounds delicious: thick dub bass, synthesized textures that shift depending on Koenig’s register, Chris Tomson’s drums getting the right sound from his martial rhythms. But this ain’t no single.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: I was gonna say Paul Simon produced by the Buggles but Trevor Horn’s tools are more pro than these. Still, at least now they’re allowed to see other bands.
[4]

Anthony Easton: It feels weird to have white boy prepsters who had previously copied Byrne copying west Africa, into working some genuinely lyrical sophistication, using Rasta argot to braid the personal and political. It actually sounds curious and beautiful and weirdly evades the racism.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Another Vampire Weekend song that will keep the believers Tweeting praises and those who loathe these guys side-eyeing the others…while us in the middle sit here and wonder why these dudes can stop flexing those college degrees and just write more straight-up pop songs for a change. Oh, wait hold on, this song actually contains one of the most annoying sounds to ever appear in a Vampire Weekend song, those pitch-shifted coos. Cool, a Vampire Weekend song I can hate because it actually grates.
[2]

Brad Shoup: An apostrophe to the Almighty that isn’t XTC’s “Dear God”? I’m in. The Vamps try to stretch one (great) conceit past a dropout where the gutpunch goes, but they already did their damage. Koenig consoles an unknowable God; how’s that for the hook? Jehovah isn’t treated as such, not quite: he’s labelled a saint (quite the demotion), called out on his mistakes, tucked into bed by a parent who’s headed to the corner store for cigarettes. The refrain packs what I recognize as truth: He is and it is what they are. Marvel or move on. The rest is men notoriously grappling with themselves, mastering hooks and production touches (the stomp is a leaner “Take a Walk,” the choral bits are terrifically ambiguous, the baroque piano runs their fussy image up the flagpole) as rapidly as they discard the comforts of knowledge. To explain one line, RapGenius superuser Maureen Miller puts a Richard Hofstadter tome in the blender. Had Koenig & co. really exposed themselves to God’s back, she might have had to burn her place down.
[8]

Jer Fairall: Charges of glibness won’t fly here: Koenig’s vocal is graceful enough that even if you don’t choose to follow along with the ponderous spiritual ramble of the lyric, his delivery brings with it enough gravity that it all feels sincere (even the invocations of Desmond Dekker and the Stones, a religion I do understand, feel reverential rather than back-pattingly clever). Charges of obnoxiousness still might, though: as many lovely notes as this hits in its languid five-minute sprawl, the African choral chant chiefly among them, someone here still thought that including those horribly grating chipmunk vocals on the chorus was a good idea.
[6]

Ian Mathers: If anything, this makes “Step” sound even better; there is absolutely no reason this one needs to be five minutes long, and for maybe the first time there’s not even a single line I appreciated in any sense. There’s still some basic melodic nous here, but that’s not going to get me coming back.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: I fully admit to never having given these guys a chance. Maybe two, five, ten years from now I’ll be rooting through some old hard drive, come across an mp3, have tears spring to my eyes from the first notes, and become a belieVWer. But for now it’s still just another collection of signifiers — yelpy vocals, funkless rhythm, spindly instrumentation, fussily precious production details, vague religious allusions — without any attendant significance.
[5]

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JASON ALDEAN - 1994 [5.00] Jasons Monday doesn’t leave us...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:45:00 +0100

JASON ALDEAN - 1994
[5.00]

Jasons Monday doesn’t leave us with many options…

Josh Langhoff: Joe Diffie’s 1994 chart-toppers summed up their strain of the country zeitgeist pretty well: good natured blues-derived novelties with crossover line dance appeal, just like “I Like It, I Love It,” “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident),” Alan Jackson’s two steps, and everybody’s lordly ruler “Achy Breaky Heart.” In those years before Shania Twain swept in with her lasers, even the non-country kids (hi!) could differentiate these songs at school dances, though we usually admired the FFA kids’ choreography from the sidelines. Aldean and his songwriters take the short walk from “Pickup Man” and company to today’s glut of country chunk rockers, just one step further from the blues. Their novelty elements — Diffie shoutouts, a loony guitar outro, and rapping that’s slower than John Michael Montgomery’s auctioneer — fall safely within the tradition. The non-country kids’ll still call this country, though with its torpid beat, I can’t imagine the FFA kids’ moves will look as impressive. (On the other hand, those earlier songs also land in my 6-7 range, and unlike them, “1994” reminds me of Prince’s 1995 banger “Now.” Come on come on, hicks on the floor.)
[6]

Alfred Soto: Taking the title literally, I anticipated drum loops out of Beck and Hole guitar riffs. But no. We get a little “3rd Rock” in our hip-hop and shimmers in our atmosphere. Aldean has neither honky tonk nor attitude.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Between this and “Boys ‘Round Here”, it seems hick-hop’s found its footing, striking the right balance between hip-hop and country signifying. (They both reference Cali Swag District, so we still have a ways to go.) But the most important thing is the track: Aldean deploys guitars masterfully, and the turnover of riffs ‘n’ whines is absurdly catchy. His voice is still thin as hell; he needs multiple tracks on the verses, and when they’re removed for the hook, he sounds like a twerp. Evoking a better time is a sucker’s move; paying tribute is nearly always awesome, and shooting shine to a mullet-sporting twanger from 20 years ago is so winning. And so is the line “hop in this truck… AKA time machine”.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Buzzfeed articles take more care in getting the past right.
[1]

Anthony Easton: Ten questions about this: 1) Why 1994? 2) Why Joe Diffie? 3) Grey Goose isn’t really honky-tonk, is it? 4) “Pick Up Man” comes from Muddy Waters, right? (I mean, it was Diffie, but can it be traced to that origin?) 5) Is teaching someone to Diffie like doing the dougie? 6) Can you get Goose in fifths? 7) What purpose does the coda serve? 8) Is “country” still a meaningful genre signifier? 9) Do the rock guitars of “Pick Up Man” mean something different than this? 10) What would Aldean trade his pickup truck for, if not a Coupe de Ville?
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Jason exclaims “atmosphere” like this is Bring It On and he’s the newest, burliest member of the Toros. Bring It On, of course, is partly about wanton appropriation, which is fitting; Aldean’s got his nostalgia going not only for Joe Diffie but hip-hop, or at least hip-hop as circumscribed by “Teach Me How to Dougie,” “Jump” (the “Joe! Joe! Joe!” part) and “The Real Slim Shady.” Country’s often gone here before, both historically and this goddamn year; if this is the best of the recent offerings, it’s because why Aldean may embarrass himself, he’s not drawing lines like Blake Shelton, nor does the embarrassment go much beyond “C-O-U-N-T-R-Y.” He’s also got a crunchier hook.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: I mean, Joe Diffie is no Springsteen.
[6]

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JASON DERULO - THE OTHER SIDE [3.67] It’s Jasons Monday!...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:12:44 +0100

JASON DERULO - THE OTHER SIDE
[3.67]

It’s Jasons Monday!

Scott Mildenhall: Jason Derulo (in fact, did it not use to be Derülo?) belongs to the Taio Cruz and Pixie Lott school of pop. All are, both musically and as “personalities.” completely unspectacular but somehow manage to just about cling to relevance, even ambling into multiple number one singles as they go. What sets Derulo apart, however, is that his mediocrity, while consistent, is offset by a tendency towards the ludicrous, especially samples from sources as diverse as Imogen Heap, Irene Cara, Johann Pachelbel, Harry Belafonte, Robin S, a Bulgarian choir and Toto. Disappointingly, “The Other Side” is a Derulo song without a sample. It’s Dec without Ant, Paul without Barry; unwittingly daft (“eating off my spoon”?), but lacking real, out and out silliness. Perhaps with the surreptitious removal of his umlaut, he lost all of his power.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: He certainly sounds committed — did some executive pull him aside and tell him this is his last shot before being returned to wherever he came from? — but the circa-2010 production isn’t fresh enough to carry him along, not retro enough to be cool. So he’s left to fall back on his personality. Oops.
[4]

Will Adams: Jason Derulo feels like he’s living a teenage dream, though it’s not a dream that I’ve had or would like to have. Not with that howling, and definitely not with an ultimatum like “kiss me like it’s do or die.”
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: I know what will pump up Jason Derulo’s sagging career! A song about living for tonight, and about disturbing the peace, and treating everything like it’s “do or die.” Even better, make it sound like every dance-pop song of the last five years, and add nothing that could make this stand out from Chris Brown.
[1]

Alfred Soto: Vocals more indebted to Usher than ever but reluctant to change a second of his aerobicized Euroglide, Derulo sounds committed to a song he should have cheated on.
[3]

Jer Fairall: Falling in love with your best friend is a lyrical conceit that I’m particularly vulnerable to; why else would Alanis Morissette’s “Head Over Feet” have snuck onto so many of my high school-era mix tapes? Derulo rather sweetly captures some of the feeling of the anxiety that accompanies the possibility of crossing that line in the first couple of verses, but by the time he reaches his oversized chorus he’s reduced it all to so much generic sentiment. “Tonight, take me to the other side,” he commands, sounding far too confident for there to be all that much at stake here after all.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The hedonism here is so dull and hidebound that I cannot imagine what the other side might be. Is it the line between friends and lovers? Does Derulo realize that you cannot fuck your friends?
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: Just kiss her already. And think less about the friend zone. Or being Dr. Luke two years ago.
[4]

Brad Shoup: I listened to a couple things this weekend that “The Other Side” puts me in mind of. First is Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night,” which winds up in the same place — give me one night, we’ll be together — but gets there with worn-smooth metaphors and an existential intensity. It’s quite possible Benatar plans to get there with drink and sex, but the idea of passion is much more fun than the practice of it. “The Other Girl” is prosaically prescriptive, with Derulo referencing a fairly specific meet-cute and predicting specific reactions (and nonchalantly implying a bit of drunk driving). The other side is nothing more than a bedroom door. The second thing was a brief NPR feature on Genesis P-Orridge’s marriage to Lady Jaye Breyer. Genesis and Jaye famously used a shitload of Rick Rubin’s money to modify their bodies so they would look as alike as possible. They saw themselves as one person stuck in two sets of moveable parts. Taking an idea of monogamy — couples eventually look and act alike, or so the joke goes — to a logical, induced terminus, they gave us a radical challenge to identity, as well as a wonderful little love story. Their “other side” was a mystical, spiritual union that transcended bullshit like aging and distance and stomach cancer. Jason’s, again, is pop’s desperate invocation of desperation at best, straight fucking with baggage at worst. (And what kind of merging is possible when he closes the track by shouting himself out?) Pop can portray taking the leap as a matter of fact, or a situation of massive import. The thudding kick and gritting synths of “The Other Side” split the difference miserably. There are no archetypes, and there is no swoon. It’s a means to an end, when no end should have ever been implied.
[3]

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JOLIN TSAI - BEAST [5.88] And our (Republic of) C-pop brings up...

Fri, 17 May 2013 19:15:24 +0100

JOLIN TSAI - BEAST
[5.88]

And our (Republic of) C-pop brings up the rear but with an even better video.

Sonya Nicholson: I hope it’s really true that all the songs up for review today are good, and not that I’m hearing everything as much better than it actually is. This sounds great on first listen, but thinking about it some more, I guess it’s got the trappings of high-concept without really being high-concept… I mean drawing a line between a sexy girl and a James Bond theme, or machine music and science fiction, not mention this 80s-by-way-of-Gaga sound, none of it’s exactly groundbreaking. But man, Jolin Tsai really knows how to give herself over to the song in those choruses. She really elevates the whole thing.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Though she hints at the fast breathing and shallow effect of a certain kind of disposable pleasure seeking, it remains unconvincing, as doesthe tension between excellent technical skills and scaled up production. Extra point for the bouncy bits in the middle.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Projecting and signifying over sequencers, Tsai is Kylie transformed into sonic affect, a blip of desire, a concept writ small.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Mandopop, Scandipop: the language could be the only giveaway these days (provided there’s no trace of hip-hop, that is). Co-written with a Finn and a Swede, this pulses like Robyn and EQs like an asshole. If you imagine hard, it could be a third-tier New Wave hit.
[5]

Iain Mew: “Beast” bears a minor resemblance to Girls Generation’s “Run Devil Run”, if the instrumentation was largely stripped back to an electro pulse and some spooky sound effects to better promote its devilish credentials. Tsai is certainly up for some patient menacing and carries it out just as well through distortion or otherwise, which is a good thing because the song has to get by more on mood than catchiness or dynamics. The wobbly alien jellyfish bit towards the end is a hell of a payoff, though.
[7]

Sabina Tang: I take it on article of faith (and Youtube subtitles) that Jolin performs in my mother tongue; I’ve never been able to understand a word she’s singing. Mind you, I’ve never discerned any personality in her voice either, so mushmouth is not the most salient issue. Props for the gothy electro, though; would be better with a real chorus, a singer capable of performing dynamic changes — and an ending.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Tsai’s voice, the blips and electric shocks stalk, and the chorus swoops, but the beast catches no prey. It finishes too neatly for that.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Dig the chorus, but the rest of this seems far from beastly.
[5]

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MORNING MUSUME - BRAINSTORMING [7.10] And the Japanese come very...

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:20:26 +0100

MORNING MUSUME - BRAINSTORMING
[7.10]

And the Japanese come very very close… if it’s any consolation this has an AWESOME video.

Sabina Tang: Meanwhile, 2010s electro-pop’s hard edges have finally invaded J-Pop. I’m hard pressed to say why I find this development salutary — scratch the tune’s surface and one finds the same old “teen idol group singing in unison” style, which has never been my favourite J-Pop flavour. I’m taken by the lyrics, though, which are outright cognitive behavioural therapy from beginning to end; and delivered by the Musume-tachi with a jackhammer aggression that borders on fascist frisson. One pictures them irresistibly as propaganda idoru synthesized to keep up the populace’s morale, in one of those anime dystopias where Japan is called “Neo-Nippon” or “Area 11.”
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Brostep without bros, and exactly as promising as that sounds. I may be overrating this after Eurovision.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I don’t know how the Japanese done it, but armed with only dodgy presets you could find on the chepest keyboard in store, they’ve created something that is totally mental and hard as nails on the ears. I mean it’s not metal, but if someone hits you hard enough with heavy enough plastic, your skull will crack and it doesn’t matter at all how pink and shiny it is. Weirdly, the main moment of respite from the adrenaline rush is when they sing “Go! Go!.”
[9]

Sonya Nicholson: Exactly the kind of metal-gone-pop that must make Marty Friedman glad to be alive, and glad he left Megadeth for Japan. Come to think of it, was he involved in this? Well anyway: classical melodies, Japanese melodies, big-arena melodies, vocals bent into instrumentals (used as melodies), and a couple drops that keep the action going in places where there are no melodies. Nice clean instrumentals that enhance without competing with the melodies. No dull moments, and excellent melodies. This song is perfect: the platonic ideal J-pop single.
[10]

Scott Mildenhall: Determination comes across as, or at least induces, panic through all the staccato. It’s quite full-on, and that’s not even mentioning the intrusive, instinct-baiting guitars, or any other part of the altogether frenzied production. To use the benchmark of an uninitiated Brit, it certainly sounds more inspiring (and inspired) than Little Mix’s recent life-changing-in-name-only ballad.
[7]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: What with all the fussing and fighting around AKB48 and their innumerable spinoffs I’d quite forgotten Morning Musume, past masters of the revolving-cast idol group form. While I wasn’t paying attention they’ve gone and done not just the full Sugababes but the full Menudo: about half of the current members weren’t even born when the group started. Idol pop in MM’s mould has drifted away from cute-kid likeability to ultra-competent eagerness to please, yet they’ve managed to keep some vague flame burning for that early funny stuff, hints of the manic silliness of a “Koi no dance site.” The rapid-clipped race through platitudes of the let’s-do-our-best verses, the frankly weird structure that brings the song to a natural end only a third of the way through and then has to wake it up again, and best of all that scree of 90s eurobeat nonsense with which it crashes into life.
[6]

Will Adams: I suppose the only way to make heavy electro basslines more intense was to mess with the four-on-the-floor beat. It’s a good look for “Brainstorming,” which pounds enough to make its moments of rest feel like just that. There’s just enough to catch your breath, though even in those small windows you need a couple of listens to make sense of all the sound.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Japanese pop has gone a bit batty over brostep over the last few months. Ayumi Hamasaki commissioned producer Dubscribe to make a wub-tastic remix of one of her songs last year, while singer Koda Kumi scored a number-one song using music sounding vaguely like Skrillex. It’s only gotten more pronounced in 2013 - some artists just flirt with the style (Perfume, Berryz Koubou) while others have embraced it (Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Momoiro Clover Z). Long-standing idol outfit Morning Musume experienced chart success with an EDM-glazed song earlier this year called “Help Me!” which was a surprise for a group that had been seeing declining sales. So now they are milking that sound all they can, as on “Brainstorming.” What’s impressive about this dubstep incorporation is that Morning Musume aren’t changing their sound wholesale as much as they are smoothly integrating heavier electronics into their sound. This melody - especially the skippy chorus - could have been a hit for the 90’s incarnation of the group. But in 2013, it has been tricked out with whirring robotic touches that make it more “hip” without being a drastic departure for J-Pop fans (while also presenting a different strand of EDM to Western ears). This is how to capitalize on popular music trends without sounding obvious.
[7]

Iain Mew: Yes, there is still an opportunity for success for Japanese idol groups who are not AKB, NMB or HKT48 or some variation thereof! Praise be. That they are doing a hard popping song with enough hooks and vitality not to get overwhelmed by the plastic dubstep let loose on it is an added bonus.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Quite a lot to chew on, from the French house touches to the load-bearing bass. Today’s eleven work a crazy urgent cadence and are spared too much vocal editing. Maybe a little baroque for my taste, but there’s more than enough bits to distract me when I start to get cranky.
[7]

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4MINUTE - WHAT’S YOUR NAME? [7.33] Today! It’s an...

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:38:58 +0100

4MINUTE - WHAT’S YOUR NAME?
[7.33]

Today! It’s an Asian pop showdown. A K-pop, a J-pop and a C-pop. And the Koreans throw down the gauntlet….

Iain Mew: Starting from the sirens, siren-like synths and barking dog (which may represent sincerity, if the subs I’m looking at are to be believed), “What’s Your Name?” is like 4Minute staging a love life intervention in the form of an interrogation. They do so armed with an array of production tricks and the vocal cool and toughness needed to back up the idea; I definitely wouldn’t want to be the one resisting.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Thought 4Minute were just going to dig into Hyuna’s leftover “Ice Cream,” but turns out they just needed it to build a tasty dessert. The production pops and burbles, like Brave Brothers envisioned a field of 8-bit bubbles for the group to poke while writing this. It can get a little too busy at times, but overall is a nice comedown from the tough-to-top “Volume Up.”
[8]

Brad Shoup: I’m not sure what the going rate is for a gorgeous 8-bit arc and an existentially pretty chorus that just keeps pushing upward. They just had to’ve left more cohesive parts on the desktop, I’m sure of it. Ecstasy is sacrificed to constrast.
[6]

Sonya Nicholson: Disjointed and lightweight, but also summery and fun, with a breezy vibe that works better as the weather gets warmer. Why is it that the two currently-promoted Kpop songs I like most right now (T-ara N4 “Countryside Life” is the other one) are exactly the two with the thinnest vocals? MYSTERY. And speaking of mysteries: This is the #1 song on Melon and has been for three weeks, which is a long time for an idol group song. But it’s #1 *only* on Melon, and not on any of South Korea’s competing music charts, fueling speculation that producer Brave Brothers is (once again) buying his way to the top. But no matter. Dude writes probably a hundred songs a year; I’m pretty sure he only backs the ones he believes in.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Bubblelicious technology and bootylicious vocals are an insoluble combination, but when the track decelerates for a guitar-anchored bridge it braced me for a chain reaction it never hit. My favorite K-pop moment of the year though.
[6]

Cédric Le Merrer: Someday, Google or Facebook will invent a new prosthetic ear dedicated to telling me cool stuff about all the brands I like, while my real ears are bored by IRL conversations. And according to Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote, it will feel just as awesome as listening to all these blips & hooks.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: What the Pet Shop Boys single was for Moroder-adjacent disco, this is for radio-adjacent pop. It’s all in there: paramilitary drums, acid-bubble synths, Game Boy bloops, the piano in Disclosure’s house, handclaps, a guitar bit that reflects as much as it can amid the chaos. Songs like these defy any description other than just listing their component audio tracks; good songs like this make internal sense anyway. This does.
[7]

Sabina Tang: Conceptually a throwback to 4Minute’s early, pink-flaunting teen-brat incarnation, before the hard edges (visual and sonic) took hold — not to mention Hyuna’s sex-kitten apotheosis of ‘11-‘12. It’s got that drunken 8-bit electric slide, though, and snares in the right places, so I forgive it for not being a leap forward.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: It’s all about the moment in the pre-chorus and in the outro where it sounds like a tape’s been dropped in water and played back. No, dropped in alcohol. It’d sound amateurish in isolation but everything in this is so expert, it wouldn’t shock me if Brave Brothers tried every melody and every preset to work out what made the girls sound the most tantalisingly taunting.
[8]

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TALIB KWELI FT. MIGUEL - COME HERE [6.00] It isn’t a...

Thu, 16 May 2013 18:25:43 +0100

TALIB KWELI FT. MIGUEL - COME HERE
[6.00]

It isn’t a competition… but I think we all know who won the Top Of Head Fashion Round…

Alfred Soto: Miguel’s falsetto, creamy and full, would represent a significant victory in one of his own songs, but Kweli’s love-you-down is at best perfunctory. What we’ve got then is yet another expenditure of Pimentalian energy.
[6]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Like a Spike Lee movie, you’re moving across the floor,” raps Talib Kweli in reference to a scene from the director’s film Bamboozled, though another of Lee’s films comes to mind: his documentary The Original Kings of Comedy. In that film, there’s a famous Steve Harvey routine where he plays a selection of soul classics to a reverent audience, culminating in a recital of Lenny Williams’ shaky emotional odyssey “Cause I Love You”. Harvey rants and raves: “See, that’s what songs used to be about – you used to tell a woman how you felt about her! You can’t tell me Lenny Williams didn’t mean that shit!” Kweli, a nostalgist like Harvey, has made a song that could slip into a new version of that very routine. It sure helps that Miguel’s sweet voice is on the hook, but Kweli’s ace in the sleeve has always been his unpretentious lover’s dispatches: listen to Train of Thought’s “Love Language” or Quality’s “Won’t You Stay”, for example. “Come Here” is a low-stakes but warm outburst of unfettered romance, so behind the times as to appear timeless. Crucially, his lyrics about making like Heathcliff and Clair seem tinged with amorous investment rather than coming across corny. I mean, c’mon — you can’t tell me Talib doesn’t mean that shit.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Polite, well constructed, confident, has some good lines and a genuine desire to make good work, and it’s solid — but solid isn’t interesting or ambitious.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Sorry, I got distracted by the way Miguel swoons all over this. What were you saying about Talib Kweli?
[6]

David Lee: It’s so rude to woo me with Miguel and Marvin Gaye when all you really have to offer is a bad case of history repeating itself.
[5]

Brad Shoup: The tap is open. Pop, hip-hop: Miguel will be whoever you want. Kinda wish Talib would’ve let his imagination fly higher than Marvin, but this is his best bet for that elusive crossover. (JT, Kanye, MJB, John Legend, Norah Jones, will.i.am: no one yet has been able to take him to the top 75.) He upholds his end of the bargain with the standard loverap corn — but still, he’s going to be just the second rapper on OHHLA to namecheck Lady Chatterley. (RIP, Twelve A’Klok.) He’s the tell, Miguel’s the show, him and a decent approximation of (yeesh) What’s Going On.
[6]

Sonya Nicholson: Four and a half minutes of urgent come-ons with tension (guitar strumming) and languid self-indulgence (strings and piano) kept in balance at a constant just-this-side-of-comfortable level the whole time. Yeah, that’s about right.
[7]

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FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE - GET YOUR SHINE ON [4.00] A relationship...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:20:10 +0100

FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE - GET YOUR SHINE ON
[4.00]

A relationship that might need some fixin’…

Patrick St. Michel: Everybody needs a summer jam, including the folks who make, distribute or indulge in moonshine. Enter Florida Georgie Line with a more-than-serviceable ode to hooch, one that’s clever enough to appeal to Moonshiners superfans and folks who just want something to hum while driving down the interstate this summer.
[7]

Alfred Soto: At least a minute too long and a decade too late.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Either Florida or Georgia is trying his best Tim McGraw in that first verse. I know what the title’s about, but I like how spangly the lyrics are: sparkles and lights and rhinestones. Even the banjo gets refractory! The chorus most definitely does not shine, though. Instead, it becomes an ambulance wail, gleefully yawing between two awful notes. A sure party slaughter.
[4]

Iain Mew: I didn’t realise that country could ever sound quite so ’90s Brit-rock in its excess, but the chorus here is just the right (wrong) kind of nauseatingly bloated. Mostly Reef, but I can also almost hear the title phrase sung as “shiiii-yine”, Liam Gallagher style
[3]

Anthony Easton: Finally, a song about fucking that doesn’t feature the back of a pickup truck (though who knows what happens in the back of that Silverado). I love how he calls to his lover, the demand of it — it seems like pretty low-key pleasure, not some huge scandal — so it’s one of the better examples in a genre with significantly diminishing returns.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Nothing about these guys makes it seem like they’d be safe people to drink moonshine around.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: This song is too sluggish and Tyler Hubbard’s voice is annoying, but it’s not so bad that I didn’t watch the video like ten times to gaze at Brian Kelley looking adorbs in that blue raglan top. So that must count for something. The chorus makes good use of the easy-rhyming facility of “shine on” but the melody is a dog. There’s no horniness, no abandon, no actual shine.
[4]

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FALL OUT BOY - YOUNG VOLCANOES [5.67] We used one of, like,...

Thu, 16 May 2013 07:08:00 +0100

FALL OUT BOY - YOUNG VOLCANOES
[5.67]

We used one of, like, three possible SFW screencaps.

Anthony Easton: Volcanoes do not become any more or less dangerous depending on their age — it’s kind of random when they go off, from my understanding.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Sneaking the line about making boys next door out of assholes over “Hey Soul Sister” chords is my idea of termite art, but we’ve still got an undeveloped title metaphor and singing too adenoidal for its own good.
[5]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: That little laugh after “how to make boys next door out of assholes”. God, if I’ve learnt one thing from my years in the trenches of eyeliner pop-punk it’s that there’s no conversion happening here. We’re all boys next door and we’re all assholes. We’re all, if you will, both Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz (I’m sure Andy and Joe are happy not being so easily shoved into ill-fitting archetypes). This song here’s on charm offensive, super approachable in the vein of those radiofaces fun. and Train — a bright-eyed anthem rattling along on handclaps and trashcan lids, tuneful, cheerful, hateful. Fall Out Boy have always known how to make a panic attack sound like a victory lap, but this one’s all triumph: all boy-next-door, all asshole.
[9]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: This is the make-or-break moment for FOB circa 2013: Patrick Stump singing, “We will teach you how to make boys next door out of assholes,” and then following it by chuckling to himself. It breaks the secret rule of Fall Out Boy’s music: sell, sell, sell. Their self-awareness was evident in Wentz’s twisty-turny journal dispatches, Stump’s powerhouse voice, their theatrical studio compositions. They sold the hell out of their music, knowing how bonkers it all seemed, understanding that they needed to go big or go home. The Laugh shatters the illusion for an attempt at off-the-cuff honesty, an acknowledgement of the band’s history with scorched-earth moaniness, a intimate peek behind the curtain. While it does all three, it also draws attention to how masterfully Fall Out Boy had maintained the cartoonish illusion of their music until this very point, to the point that it became one of their finest artistic elements. “Young Volcanoes” is the sound of the band as they corpse their well-oiled routine; The Laugh is the sound of Stump deciding to bluff the punchline for once. As their one-time tourmates sang with a mix of disappointment and understanding: I guess this is growing up.
[5]

Crystal Xia: “Young Volcanoes”, like pretty much every song on the new Fall Out Boy album, is a collection of little moments and small things I’ve noticed that I’ve loved: the acoustic guitar serving mostly as some sort of rhythm keeper; handclaps keeping the rhythm throughout the track; the contrast between the two words “Americana” and “exotica”; the fact that they are placed one right after the other; the way that Patrick drags out the “easy” in “make it easy”; the line “we will teach you how to make boys next door out of assholes”; Patrick Stump’s little giggle after that line; the pinging echoes of “we are” by the bandmates in the chorus; and many, many more. Patrick Stump is basically an MVP here; the rest of the band is along for the ride, but it’s really his chance to holler with the full force of his teenage boy personality.
[8]

Brad Shoup: More fun with addition: today, Ke$ha and Billy Joel! The bass is coming through, so that wish is granted. I’m great with one-note piano pings; they’re even more of a delicacy wrapped up in the low end. The chorus is a full triumph, which is fortunate cos this song would be a quarter otherwise. But listen to these white boys marking the loss of empire!
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Although this song is enjoyable enough, how galling must it be to be Pete Wentz right now? He can throw in all the clever lyrical jabs he wants but most of what I remember from the Fall Out Boy record is Patrick Stump going anthemic over wordless crowd chants. Fortunately this shares a characteristic of the rest of the band’s recent output: it’s comfortable in its own emptiness. So comfortable you won’t even notice the barbed wire.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: Good to see Fall Out Boy continuing to Save Rock And Roll from the Monsters And Men that have, well, taken it in this very direction. Patrick Stump’s voice doesn’t suit it though, whether due to prior associations or just it being a bit loud. Take That put the cap on this microgenre four years ago anyway, before Mumford was even on the scene, never mind his Sons.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: I would have guessed rock’n’roll needed saving from Train, not through Train.
[3]

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NATALIE MAINES - FREE LIFE [5.50] In which we share our...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:55:47 +0100

NATALIE MAINES - FREE LIFE
[5.50]

In which we share our Semisonic memories…

Edward Okulicz: Dan Wilson helped the Dixie Chicks metamorphose into a great rock band on Taking The Long Way, and here he takes Maines, gives her one of his old songs, and turns her into Aimee Mann (this reminds me of “Lost in Space” in places) with wailing capacity. Which is all very well and good, but it’s not the most effective use of Maines’ talents and if the idea was to make her a mainstream rock artist then the job was already done. Her voice is still impressive but the song’s too small for it — it feels like an artistic retreat because Maines once grew her fanbase with bravery, cheek and sticking to her guns. Of course given its creators, it’s perfectly sung and produced which counts for something.
[6]

Alfred Soto: A typical newly solo indulgence: disinterest in length, a putative manifesto written for and sung in the singer’s private argot, the absence of colleagues who could have sharpened this thing.
[4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: So the Dixies vocalist covered a song by the Semisonic guy and turned it into a Sharon van Etten song? Where do I sign up?
[7]

Brad Shoup: I was all about Dan Wilson in high school: believe that. His tremulous tenor, his way with turnarounds and middle eights and experimental-for-AAA sonic touches… I practically had to sneak “DND” past my parents, such was my evangelical situation and my need for songwriting chops. Some tunes are written, some must be crafted. Free Life came too late for me, though. It’s a total neo-Wounded Bird deal: overlong pop-rock polished by pros. Cause-célèbre context aside (there’s a Spotify commentary if you wish), this plays like a love note from one insider to another. The Feeling Strangely Fine organ joins, Wilson’s sprightly tempo and ’70s sensibility recedes. This is a sac bunt from a pop slugger.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: A little heavy-handed, but Maines sells it so well it doesn’t even matter.
[7]

Ian Mathers: I’m not sure how I feel about the emphasis on “free” in “free life” (although thankfully the rest of the lyrics read to me at least as being more about free from oppression rather than necessarily free from responsibility) but Maines remembers something a lot of her contemporaries seem to forget, which is that if you make the song soar that kind of concern can seem decidedly secondary.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: There’s a handful of Dan Wilson songs worth enjoying and admiring — “Chemistry,” “Home,” even a couple Grobans — but this ain’t one of ‘em. Too linear, too writerly, nothing that qualifies as catchy, so Maines is forced to simply unleash her awesome wail on the chorus, as though wailing could bend this straight line of melody into a hook.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Maines has a voice, and she maintains it — I have always thought she was more interesting than her band mates, and the slight chop of the vocals is a good choice; even the lyrics have a kind of prophetic power. I mean it’s not Richard Harris doing “The Hive,” but it does what it needs to do until near the end where she blows up the whole mess via over-effort.
[5]

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PET SHOP BOYS - AXIS [6.82] Business mythological… Jer...

Wed, 15 May 2013 20:25:31 +0100

PET SHOP BOYS - AXIS
[6.82]

Business mythological…

Jer Fairall: “I Feel Love” without Donna’s ice-melting touch, or maybe some early 90s club hit minus the big “3 A.M. Eternal”/”Rhythm is a Dancer”/”No Limit”-style chorus, this broody, thumping track sounds like it could have come from just about any era during the PSB’s existence except for maybe our sorry Guettized one. If the Boys themselves barely sound present here, their cool austerity still completely guides this in spirit.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Fashionable, and interesting for how it has stripped away almost all vocals, which really was the purpose of the PSB existing. I am yet to be convinced that interesting means good.
[5]

Iain Mew: Sounding like someone involved in the single somewhere is having fun is already a big improvement on the singles from the last album. The results are mostly just gently pleasing, but some of the fine details, the evolving sounds and the headphone-ready panning, are great. The brief bit of hard distortion towards the end reminding me of Capsule may not be placing the original source, but it’s a highlight regardless.
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: On “Axis,” Mr Tennant and Lowe are happily nudging the listener in the ribs, reminding them that they watched electronic music blossom from humble beginnings, splinter off into subcategories and proceed to conquer the world. Does this give them the license to indulge every techno and electro whim they have? In a way, yes, because the way they inherit familiar tropes — buzz-saw synths, robot chants, head-nod percussion — and make them sound vital is a lot of fun and a very Pet Shop Boys thing to do. More an act of strategy than anything, but rarely does a planned status reminder come off as well as this song.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Into the fray, with a fidgety bassline and a giddy-dumb hook. A dancefloor comeback that bends time.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: “My name is Christopher Sean, but everybody calls me Chris.” One of the best backward-looking, forward-moving dance tracks put out by a duo partial to eyecatching headwear in a long while. It sounds like the soundtrack to a film about a dystopian future where people have to race futuristic cars around futuristic CGI tracks for some reason or another: relentless — Very Relentless, even — foreboding, and most importantly, exciting. Pet Shop Boys have a liking for following up one album with a reaction to it, and if the reinvigoration of “Axis” is reflective of Electric than that should not only bear out once more, but with spectacular results.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Two consecutive dud albums – being boring is not what we expect of Tennant-Lowe. “Axis” returns us to love and dancing, a look backwards to a time when several strands of thump synergized. Want a strand of “Trans-Europe Express”? It’s in here. Rattling post-disco Patrick Cowley? Check. Basic Harold Faltermeyer keyboard pads? Yup. In other words, a true axis. Slip this between Lindstrøm and Disclosure and somebody might notice.
[7]

Ian Mathers: I mean, this is fine for what it is (if not terribly distinctive), but why have Neil Tennant if you’re not going to use him?
[5]

Crystal Xia: I get that Pet Shop Boys are the ones who started it’s all, but it’s hard to get excited about “Axis” when it feels like artists like GRUM and Fred Falke have been taking this to a new level. Something interesting and new sounding finally happens around the three minute mark, but it’s too late to revive the track.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Nothing since Very has been as propulsive as this; the shock of a PSB single without much in the way of Tennant on it is a relief because his lyrical wizardry has frayed a bit. But just because his schtick is stale, that doesn’t mean that there’s not plenty of other things he and Lowe can do. Think of this as a clearing of the drawing board; it’s a whizz through techno from Kraftwerk and Moroder to… whoever today is still drawing from them and having #1 hits, if you know what I mean. That’s a compliment — “Axis” sounds modern and sleek and has bigger hooks than anything off their last two albums with barely a word in it. It sounds like a fanfare portending the return of blood in the veins of two of pop’s true geniuses.
[8]

Sabina Tang: A heartening return to form after the last album, which was sleepy and a bit rubbish. (I like downtempo PSB, mind you, and was just as excited at the equivalent point in Elysium’s promo cycle, so full judgment is deferred until July’s crop of disco lasers.)
[8]

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KE$HA FT. WILL.I.AM - CRAZY KIDS (REMIX) [4.58] Album sales in...

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:54:03 +0100

KE$HA FT. WILL.I.AM - CRAZY KIDS (REMIX)
[4.58]

Album sales in the toilet? Buy a will.i.am verse and your score will be too. Limited time only!

Anthony Easton: Ke$ha as always flirted with earnestness, and positioned her partying as a kind of self-actualization. It was hinted at, never quite made explicit, but it was kind of a road-of-excess, Blakean thing. The interesting bit about that is that she never let the inspirational process fall over the genuinely pleasurable bits. It was a bonus. Making it the main course — and adding will.i.am — kind of ruins the meal.
[4]

Will Adams: When will his reign of terror end? Never mind the whistling (I’d rather not talk about it), someone please explain to me who decided it was a good idea to replace one of Ke$ha’s sharp-tongued verses for will.i.am’s dribble. He loses a point for “boobies” alone (though to be fair he gains it back with the mumbling bit, which is genuinely funny). The song itself is mediocre, another in a line of Ke$ha’s mission statement and another in a line of a build-drop template composed of two disparate parts held together by Scotch tape. It’s not nearly as crazy as the title wants it to be.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Her career fading a bit, she turns to the track with a redundant will.i.am bit and revs up the riffage. Who needs this when “Die Young” and “We R Who We R” exist?
[4]

Rebecca A. Gowns: I’m one of those people that adored Warriorwhen it was released — it’s just a fun set of songs. So I’ve heard this song several times by this point (and yeah, this is super close to the album version; as is typical lately, the “remix” just consists of a VERY lazy will.i.am. verse being shoved into the middle for 25 seconds). My seasoned review of “Crazy Kids” is as follows: the whistling sounds as if it’s being performed by an asthmatic, the guitar parts are dreary, it’s full of that “youth!!” marketing flavor that’s all over the radio, and the song is not NEARLY crazy enough. The verses are fine enough to dance to, but even then, it’s still warmed-over Far East Movement. The song as a whole has too many sleepy parts to really get a crowd moving; frankly, those parts are not even rousing enough for people to pull out their lighters (or cell phones) and sway them slowly. 1 point for being dull but serviceable, 2 points for being a Ke$ha song, after all.
[3]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Despite the successes of “We R Who We R”, the underlined Up With People approach in Ke$ha’s music has never successfully aligned with her most famed aesthetic - the spirit-drenched mix of goofy rapping and standardized four-on-the-floor beats. Her optimism isn’t at odds with her flippant club persona, but rarely have they clicked successfully, with one overpowering the other. But suddenly on the “Crazy Kids” remix, everything makes sense. The verses’ muffled techno programming allows Ke$ha and guest will.i.am to enjoy the spoils of their silliness, the latter seeming more human than he has in years. This gives way to the chorus’s mix of strumalong guitars and appropriately tribalistic drums, the setting for the artist to build a community out of the clubhoppers, make-out kids and weekend warriors: “We are! We are we are!” The repetition of ‘we’ above all else makes it a mantra, a charmingly naive message of inclusion topped off with a whisper: “WE ARE THE CRAZY PEOPLE.” The whisper, straight from a theatre-kid playbook but undoubtedly effective, seals the deal of inclusion. The bridge (returning to her apocalyptic imagery from “Die Young” and “Out Alive”) acknowledges that there may be little more to her politics than to gather people together for celebrations, but even that is enough in a world spinning out of control: “This is all we’ve got/And then it’s gone.”
[8]

Brad Shoup: I’d like to add a point to my Mariah/Miguel score, please. I forgot the no-whistling curve.
[4]

Jer Fairall: Ke$ha remains, to me, a one-trick pony whose one trick I never cared much for in the first place, though I’ll give it up a bit for will.i.am’s “speaking in a mumble” bit—the only time he’s ever made me laugh on purpose.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Lots of pop stars start or moonlight as session writers, but it’s only ever brought up on two occasions: when they’re trying to break out, the “she’s written for Britney!” script; or when pundits want to prove their authenticity with the trusty Procrustean rubric “she writes her own songs!” (As always, always she.) Everything else is just assumed to be part of the artist’s grand 360-deal vision — which can be misleading. The chorus to “Crazy Kids” is so clearly a Kesha Sebert work for hire: a pretty, melodic clarion call to whoever you are, singable by whoever you’ve got: Avril, Selena, Britney, Katy, Amy out of Karmin had she not reached her “hello” limit. Ke$ha took this one herself — maybe under duress — and because Ke$ha can’t yet release a single that’s entirely fluttery plaint, it’s awkwardly grafted onto a dirty bit, with a will.i.am verse grafted onto that for the single. (Give Will this: that muffled shutting-up of an ending is probably fanservice for lots of people, and he knows it.) Session writing isn’t inherently bad, and Sebert’s very good at it; that intro “hello” is some Lionel Richie shit, but to a kid alone with the airwaves, it probably sounds like her fairy godmother. The verses are identikit$ha, but they fill their time. It’s just that none of this, content or construction, is crazy.
[5]

David Lee: will.i.am is definitely one of those assholes who likes making Roller Coaster Tycoon POV videos in which unfinished roller coasters pull their passengers to thrilling heights only to fling them into the air and kill them. It wouldn’t be an endeavor all that different from his work of late. Like “Scream and Shout,” this presents a buildup that never achieves any kind of recognizable, cathartic chorus. I shouldn’t be surprised, though, since will.i.am seems to have a knack for making bland party anthems. Only the Ke$ha parts of “Crazy Kids” - no, not the rapped bits that are covered in will.i.am’s fingerprints - redeem it from total failure. They make up about 40% of this remix so it gets a
[4]

Crystal Xia: The original without will.i.am is one of my favorite songs of last year, probably my favorite album cut off of Warrior. It features a lot of things that I am really into: dumb and probably needless whistling; acoustic guitar serving more of a rhythm role; Ke$ha faux-rapping about her coochie in her perfect bratty intonation; and that grounded “Like a G6”-esque beat in the verses. Those things are all still here, except now we’re down one Ke$ha verse where she gives us a bratty “booty paahp” and more vagina talk (coded as “kitty kat”). It’s been replaced by a giant, awkward pause from the fun when will.i.am verse comes in. It is impossible to describe how bad he is; all I can say is that there are un-fun boob jokes and there is actually part where he just goo-goo-gah-gahs like a child. What a shame the original wasn’t released as the single.
[6]

Ian Mathers: I mean, there are obviously ways, musically and not, that Ke$ha is admirable, and her songs are often quite good, but she can’t elevate will.i.am (no matter how hard the production tries), she can’t quite make whispering “we are the crazy ones” in a song at least partly about partying any less dodgy, and she can’t make this one feel much less distinctive than her great songs.
[5]

Sabina Tang: Ke$ha has the intonation and the laugh of a high school cool girl; not a bully so much as someone whose gaze would have raked me with contemptuous mild amusement in the locker room. Such girls will always be a different species. Find a specimen who’s in school now: no matter how old you are and how much you’ve changed, she’ll look at you and see that you weren’t a cool girl then, and fail to respect you accordingly. That frisson of… native enmity?… is what makes me pay attention to Ke$ha; even in moments like this one, when her surroundings vie to render her anonymous.
[5]

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LAURYN HILL - NEUROTIC SOCIETY [5.75] Tax Factor. Anthony...

Tue, 14 May 2013 19:09:05 +0100

LAURYN HILL - NEUROTIC SOCIETY
[5.75]

Tax Factor.

Anthony Easton: It takes brass ovaries to not pay your taxes for years, and then go to Sony and ask them for millions of dollars for a five song EP, and then on the first track of that EP become disgusted with global capitalism. The song is a bit ragged, it’s been run out to the market fast, and her delivery, with its manic edge, marks a kind of awareness of the aesthetics of speed; it’s double tracked and one of those tracks is played at chipmunk speed. The lyrics are so dense that some of them say really interesting things, really important things — thinking of the global capital market like Mac Heath is a fantastic idea, as is the idea of coke as the prime drug of our economic core (but that was done better by Brett Eason Ellis), as is the idea of capital as cancer (which was done better by Sontag in Illness as Metaphor),and calling out hip-hop culture, reminding her community that their love of Louis Vuitton has any number of real problems, including that it perpetuates a kind of slavery. It seems to be such a vital piece in the culture right now, so symbolic, that to treat it as a song seems difficult.
[5]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Last week, Lauryn Hill posted an iTunes link to her first new material since 2010. On her Tumblr, however, she referred to it as a “piece” — denoting that it was more than just a mere song, but art by a real artist, rushed out as a “Compulsory Mix” due to a combination of legal and label concerns. The next day, she was sentenced to three months in prison. The release of “Neurotic Society” is burdened with bitterness, seeing as Hill created it in a failed effort to pay off a large amount of money to the federal government. You want to like it, if not because Hill’s been absent from music for so long, then because of the surrounding circumstances. “Neurotic Society” is fascinating, but it’s still something of a rush job, a few drafts away from completion. The Imperial March strings would have been the first thing to go — way too unsubtle — but you wonder if Hill would consider rerecording her vocals. Hearing her rap again is almost worth hearing her recite Adbuster editorials in double-time monotone. Almost. But you imagine her word-tumbling flurry on the world’s many follies would surely stay as is, despite being an early draft. That’s the type of stubbornness that makes her a real artist, and that’s the type of stubbornness that makes her an artistic liability.
[6]

Iain Mew: I’m a long way from digesting much of what Lauryn Hill is saying, or even being sure how possible that will be, but I love how “Neurotic Society” sounds. The swirl of melody around her and the distorted voices are like she’s kicking up a tornado on her own through her force of belief and speed of her words.
[8]

Alfred Soto: A quick listen to “Lost Ones” reminded me of what we’ve missed since her withdrawal from public life. Reciting polysyllabic Latinates over a nominal backbeat may have the same effect on other listeners. Like a Beltway hack touring the Sunday talk show circuit, she hopes the fog of words will both adduce her intelligence and hide her vacuity, which is why a charge of tax evasion is so appropriate.
[2]

Ian Mathers: The gnashing production is at its most beautiful during the verse breaks, but it’s great throughout; a seething, forceful backdrop for Hill to emerge again against, on as much of her own terms as possible. The idea that her (mostly inarguable) criticisms of modern western society are somehow rude, more problematic than the problems themselves, or grounds for mental health concerns would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so chilling. That makes the track worthy of respect; it’s the production and Hill’s firebreathing performance that makes it great as well.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Ms. Hill reminds me of Doc Corbin Dart, another musician too moral to function within the day-to-day bullshit. Some people are just wired Manichaean, and for every awesome moment, there are a thousand little exhaustions. Rohan Marley has said that she writes at all times and on all surfaces; “Neurotic Society” could well be all that writing in one four-minute shot. Everyone’s indicted in this thesaurus of charges. On her biggest hit, she took a second to assure us that “Lauryn is only human.” Now, she takes on an alien pitch, as if she’s on the spaceship, pronouncing our misdeeds before she blows the planet away. The high-stepping chorus carries the seeds of excitement, even as the cymbals distort and the vocals must be scooped out. Weirdly, there’s no thrill in Ms. Hill’s gymnastics: it’s so much slam poetry read off a well-worried notepad. Still, she has my sympathies, but I know how much that’s worth.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Hill has so much to say that it’s a shame she’s been nearly absent from record. “Neurotic Society” goes some (in fact, a lot more than some) way of catching us up on her thoughts. It’s tempting to slow the track down or read along with lyrics, but that would kill some of the shock; a line like “pot calling the kettle narcissist” sounds more profound out of Hill’s mouth than it looks on a screen. The way this is put together makes it sound like she’s got fifty lines pithier and cleverer. Ultimately she doesn’t, and is in need of a better internal editor. The verses land lots of blows (some good, some not so good) but those strings are ham-fisted.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: The urgent, cluttered production apparently matches what’s going on in her head, if the fevered, Last Poets-style word-spew she’s delivering is any indication. She’s not wrong about any of it, and she’s perfectly within her rights to dress her ideas in the clothes of her choosing; but listeners have rights too.
[6]

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CHRIS MALINCHAK - SO GOOD TO ME [7.18] On some theoretical music...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:09:00 +0100

CHRIS MALINCHAK - SO GOOD TO ME
[7.18]

On some theoretical music map somewhere, this is marked as descended from “Levels.”

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Li Shang-Yin once wrote that “one inch of love is an inch of ashes.” Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had both of their lives taken away at astonishingly young ages under tragic circumstances — he at forty-four shot by his own father, she of a brain tumour at twenty-four. The music they recorded, both together and apart, became an intrinsic thread in the DNA of modern sound and a testament to the power of soul. The only track on the duo’s 1967 United album to be composed solely by Gaye was “If This World Were Mine”, a testimony to the vigor ordained from love and the desire to give back. “You’re my consolation,” Gaye sings to Terrell, intrinsically linking earthly pleasures to the unknown and the infinite. Chris Malinchak samples this lyrical turn on “So Good To Me” — along with much of “If This World Were Mine” — and sets it to a deep house instrumental that is by turns organic-sounding and gentle, shimmering where others would stomp. The romantic vibe is supported by Malinchak’s decision to retain the heart of the source material, especially given that he could have disembodied the voices of Gaye and Terrell and moved their romantic intentions elsewhere. This way, “So Good To Me” becomes an audio tribute, beaming in the romantic gestures of the past and giving them new life. An inch of ashes becomes, once again, an inch of love; somewhere in the cosmos, amongst the consolations, the lover’s wail propagates, reborn anew.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: If Flo Rida were trendy, and also mute.
[5]

Will Adams: It’s pretty, and I can see the muted euphoria it’s angling for, but it doesn’t quite hit it for me. It’s probably the fault of that vocal drone, which just buzzes around like a mosquito that won’t leave.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Gorgeous minimalism, with the vocals projecting that halff-remembered pre-dawn glow of love.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: This is so sweet and subdued, I want to sit in a hammock with it.
[7]

Ian Mathers: The production is such a lovely, low-key, unassuming little thing; you’d think it would wilt under or neuter the vocals. Instead this feels a bit like early Burial having a very good day out in the country, so good he’s decided to allow the samples to breathe a little.
[8]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: Lightweight, low-key house: a bit too early in the year. The whole thing’s warmed through with the nostalgia of late summer. You can hear it in the long sustained choral coo, the paddy synth chords, the echo-treated guitar sound that bursts deliberately behind the vocal like time-stretched footage of a firework. You can hear it in the vocal, too. Though it’s sewn together from Tammy and Marvin’s “If This World Were Mine” it’s a different cut of cloth, a lonely single voice that warbles at the seams. Above all, you can hear in it the ghosts of all those dance tracks that travel back with us from festivals and summer holidays. It’s sweet, corny, like Roger Sanchez’ “Another Chance,” like Bob Sinclar’s “Love Generation.” Not a good-time banger, but the sound of sunrise, taking a breath, and deciding you could dance for a few hours more.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: When you’re trying to dance but it’s 3am and knees and feet are sore and you can’t do anything more than nod while having a drink to the side, a song like this could make the dance floor seem like a cosy bed. Peacefulness and sweetness are underrated qualities in dance music.
[8]

Anthony Easton: I’ve rarely heard anything that sounds so lovely and so settled — the desire seeking that fits into the desire sought, and the expansion of that, is not a new idea but it is a rare one, and rarer when done well.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: The greatest thing about this is how when it’s played on the radio it can just float in and out between songs, a two-and-a-half minute interlude that ends on the same level it’s maintained throughout. There’s no big finish or reconsideration, it doesn’t stop being lovely: it just stops. And then the mercifully even shorter “Paddington Frisk” by Enter Shikari comes on, as happened on Radio 1 the other week.
[8]

Brad Shoup: I was in Houston on Saturday evening with some friends, watching Yu Darvish and his Rangers squeak out a win against the ‘stros. Phillip Humber got hammered in the 6th; we watched his ERA, displayed in real time on the scoreboard, climb from an already-ghastly 8.49 to over 9-and-a-half. Mother’s Day was Sunday, and his presence reminded me of Dallas Braden, who pitched a perfect game on Mother’s Day 2010. Humber’s perfect game was only last year, and after Saturday’s bloodbath, Houston designated him for assignment. Sports prepped me for pop: scanning Total Baseball for unlikely league leaders; reading Bill James’ Abstracts and old SABR issues for tales of guys who had their afternoon, month or season in the sun; making cases for underheralded players. So pop made sense in this way: you recognize the greats, and savor those who attain greatness for any length of time. There are songs and albums; there are also people and stories. When I signed up at Rateyourmusic.com, I chose “Silent Mike” as my username in tribute to a solid Giants right fielder from 120 years ago. Malinchak spends this week lodged at number 2 on the UK chart, underneath Daft Punk. I can’t imagine he’ll be here again, but it’s still a wondrous thing. His moment consists of Disneyfied deep house, an androgynizing of Marvin Gaye streaked with grating coos, stitched together. It’s not All-Star material, but it’s humane and soothing, and just as with Mr. Humber, I wouldn’t complain if Malinchak earned another chance to impress.
[6]

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EUROVISION 2013

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:17:18 +0100

Hello Tumblr people. In case you never visit our main site (and I think that’s a few of you) you might not know that we are liveblogging the Eurovision Song Contest.

It won’t be awful! Swing by http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com a little before 8pm GMT Tuesday night (which I would say is about 4pm EST in America-land).

THE WANTED - WALKS LIKE RIHANNA [2.82] Only one syllable away...

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:11:20 +0100

THE WANTED - WALKS LIKE RIHANNA
[2.82]

Only one syllable away from being a Weird Al Bangles parody.

Katherine St Asaph: I hate to encourage industry bullshit, but just this once: Rihanna better be getting a huuuuge kickback.
[1]

Alfred Soto: Wow. She’s freaky, can’t sing or dance, the subject of a tune sung by five young male assholes. Could be worse — it’s not “Forgives Like Rihanna.”
[0]

Scott Mildenhall: Yes, this is The Wanted’s idea of sensitivity. Very confusing though — are vocal and rug-cutting talents normally a prerequisite for being the lucky object (that’s object) of their affections? Certainly neither were prerequisites for getting into The Wanted (and who wouldn’t want to get into The Wanted, right lads?). Maybe it’s just a sly dig at Rihanna herself; after all, she’s probably the only female popstar they haven’t already picked a public figh(THAT’S QUITE ENOUGH OF THAT — AD HOMINEM ED). Nonetheless, “Walks Like Rihanna” is a melodic triumph, packed with hooks in a refreshingly clean Dr. Luke production that’s sweet without being saccharine. The “hearts go boom boom” bit in particular is actually kind of lovely, so well done all involved.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The problem is that Rihanna can sing and dance, and there’s nothing really special about her walking style. What makes your heart go boom boom with regards to Rihanna is her really quite clever dancing and singing — that its insouciant style is unique. This is a style that precludes walking just for the sake of walking. Although the chorus and the handclaps are pretty fantastic, the exploiting of Rihanna’s good name seems to be a cheap indie stunt.
[2]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Maybe “Walks Like Rihanna” — a sub O-Town ode to picking up women or something — is the first sign that we stop and consider what Ms Robyn Rihanna Fenty has achieved in the space of eight years, from being just another girl singing over the Diwali riddim to leaving an irrefutable mark on the landscape of popular music. In the eyes of the here-today gone-today internet age, she’s earned her keep — it’s why she has a “Legacy” sub-section on her Wikipedia page. In the real world, she’s a never-ending fixation of the radio, press and public. She is important. There is a difference between importance and being iconic, however, and it seems as though it’s too soon to consider Rihanna a cultural icon. This makes The Wanted’s treatise on her walk (of all things) and pointed use of her name too much too soon. It isn’t helped that the only worthwhile moment is a bridge that could have been ripped from an quarter-decent emo song from 2003 (“our hearts go boom boom boom!”).
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: I realize what The Wanted are going for here, but I really like the image of a bunch of dudes falling for a woman just because she studied the “Umbrella” video and absorbed her moves. Oh yeah, this song is pretty boring.
[3]

Iain Mew: The twanging elastic bridge beats One Direction at their own game, and the tune as a whole is warmly affecting in a way that I would not have guessed a mid-tempo single by The Wanted could manage. The second verse vocals are ropey, but that’s par for the course. It’s a shame that it’s spoiled so much by lyrics that carry through on the awfulness the title concept suggests.
[4]

Ian Mathers: A perfectly serviceable chorus either held back or elevated (your choice) by a fairly out-of-nowhere conceit - “walks” doesn’t sound like a euphemism for anything else, seeing as how they specify that she can’t dance. The fact that that qualifies her as “the freakiest thing” according to these guys is a bit discomfiting, really. And the chorus only achieves about 75% liftoff, which doesn’t help.
[5]

Jer Fairall: Production-wise, this is far from charmless: the saccharine piano intro, the brief wash of strings, and the simple, chugging guitar figure that runs throughout the entire thing are all all easy on the ears. The vocals, though, are anemic enough to make one long for the polished anonymity of One Direction, and the titular lyrical conceit is among the stupidest that I’ve encountered in a long while.
[4]

Brad Shoup: I feel like all of us — Rihanna, TSJ, the text’s audience, the bit in one channel that sounds like a boys’ choir, humanity — just got negged.
[2]

Will Adams: “She’ll be the girl of your dreams if you can close your eyes.” Yeah, we get it, guys. You just discovered masturbation.
[0]

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TYGA FT. WIZ KHALIFA & MALLY MALL - MOLLY [3.45]...

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:42:20 +0100

TYGA FT. WIZ KHALIFA & MALLY MALL - MOLLY
[3.45]

#patricksegues

Patrick St. Michel: Do you like drugs? All of these guys do — and that’s pretty much all they fucking talk about.
[1]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: After Tyga surprisingly lassoed a “Deep Cover” sample into one of the best hip-hop singles of the year, it seemed like he was destined to be more than a derivative Young Money benchwarmer. Yet here we are with “Molly” and hoo boy. Tyga’s voice is all flow with no grit, a blah presence on his own track. When he drops the obvious “All Gold Everything” joke (“woo!”), you’re praying when Trinidad James Bond and his pet puppy will swoop in and save the day. Next up is Wiz, whose “my bitch so bad that I’m never ever cheating” tribute to his wife is almost heartwarming — but not heartwarming enough to negate the fact he does his trademark cackle twice. If Mally Mal is a real person, “Molly” can’t find him/her, burying him/her under the sheer force of repetition: “MOLLY/MOLLY/MOLLY/MOLLY/…MOLLY”. As stupid as it is, “Molly” does make for a fascinating stitch-up of the last two years’ dominant mixtape trends: post-crunk pugilism, no-key strip club music and, yes, ecstasy. This is Frankenstein rap, ripped from the flesh of better artists and willed to life by an endless supply of Birdman money. As a testament to stupid budgets and daft decisions, it may be unparalleled for the rest of the year; as a testament to recreational drugs, it makes for a real lousy trip.
[2]

Jer Fairall: “I’m on a bad trip,” indeed: an ugly-ass bit of club noise becomes a jittery, tingling hip-hop track, the paranoid determination of the robot voice contrasting against the heedless urgency of the verses and rendering both all the more frightening as a result.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: If “Rack City” was grim, this is grimmer still, though less obvious. Is this during a trip, before a trip, after a trip, somehow removed from a trip? Isn’t this dead affect precisely what tripping is designed to escape? Shouldn’t you not feel the synths prick like ants up your arms or like — I swear I’m not on anything — a late sedate ABBA song? Is that a Chief Keef reference? “All Gold Everything” too? Do people still tolerate Wiz Khalifa because of some rap game golden parachute? Who or where is Mally Mall, I can’t seem to find her? (Why aren’t either substantially more or fewer kids being named Molly nowadays?) Are we there yet? Is there any more? Who knows; who cares anymore.
[5]

Brad Shoup: It’s usually a bummer when a subcultural shibboleth loses its flavor, but sometimes it’s a blessing. Somehow, club kids cadging off each other turned into a wink instead of an eyeroll; even rappers — so good at playing acquisition — are asking for Molly instead of supplying it. Tyga’s pursuit of pleasure is backed by Dez Dynamic’s late-night murder mystery theme. Khalifa gets a smile for “bitch so bad that I’m never ever cheatin’”, but no one’s escaping that voice. The trip is bad, the trip is solo. This is not headspace you’d care to explore.
[4]

Josh Langhoff: Thank goodness for young Khalifa! Tyga’s technically accomplished and all, but it must suck to have less personality than your Siri robo-hook. On the other hand, Tyga’s Siri robo-hook is even more annoying than those people who spend 20 minutes asking Siri silly questions about love and woodchucks while Siri craftily transmits their whereabouts to Homeland Security — that’s that shit I don’t need. Why am I still listening to this?
[4]

Anthony Easton: I would really like to have a track sung by a woman who is being recorded and not another status prop like champagne or drugs. This is especially the case since it’s ambiguous exactly who is going to be the consumer of the drugged beverage. Minus a point for the sample.
[1]

Iain Mew: This would be a better song without the vocal sample. Not a great one, but it has some decent dynamics; nothing anyone says even approaches the brainless dead weight of “I can’t seem to find Molly”. Plus, it doesn’t sound elsewhere like they’re having any trouble on that front.
[4]

Will Adams: It’s a weak hook, and it’s not entirely effective to use a robot voice to liven up an already-woozy strip club groove.
[3]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: We stopped going to that club in the end, and there were a lot of reasons for it — queues, crowding, the cost of entry, the cost of drinks, the cost of water, shirty bouncers, uneven lineups, unwanted hands in places that weren’t accidental with a frequency that was frankly insulting, all those things that turn a night from collective joy to an endurance test. But I guess what killed that place for me was one night, just as the feeling was starting to sour, just as the music was no longer enough, when every clumsy sweaty body that stumbled into us seemed to be asking the same hopeless, anhedonic question: you got any pills mate? got any pills? got any pills? got any pills? got any pills? got any pills?
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Molly? She’s over there. Left a little. Right a little. Yeah, right there.
[3]

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LAURA MARLING - MASTER HUNTER [6.88]...

Mon, 13 May 2013 17:54:47 +0100

LAURA MARLING - MASTER HUNTER
[6.88]

#hashtaggingalauramarlingsongfeelswrongbutohgodforgivemeyolo

Katherine St Asaph: What the hell happened to Laura Marling last year? Not technically — she was proficient when you were puking up high-school wine slurpees, and every lead single stuns me anew with just how good she is — but personally, as she’s now gone from staying up doing sleepless, selfless psychic battle for glum boyfriends to writing “Left Alone”: the fuck-off folk version. Saddling Marling’s latest with Idler Wheel comparisons is about as crap a move as saddling her other albums with Dylan comparisons was, and closing oneself off from men and all is far from an uncommon theme for women writers, but everything corresponds: the antsy clatterclang percussion; her runaway intonation, as in “I’ve got a littlelalot on my plate” (especially “plate”); lines like “I don’t [cry when I’m sad/stare at water] anymore.” Marling’s a different sort of singer, reaching for revival cadences (example: “no, no, no-o-o) where Apple reaches for vaudeville. She’s a different sort of songwriter, too — adding the earth to metaphors like “I cured my skin,” kind of a city/country mouse contrast; preferring Latin mythology to Apple’s Latinate words. Marling’s got her own mythology by now, too, and the verse where she alludes to “Alas I Cannot Swim” breaks your heart if you’ve followed her from the start, before she became hard to know. (If that’s meta, it’s sadder still.)
[8]

Brad Shoup: Puzzling that a track this blood-swollen dips into a bit of slutshaming. I suppose you can’t inhabit someone’s skin without it grafting a little. That’s how we get a typical serrated Marling track that keeps dipping into the cadences of “Tangled Up in Blue.” Per the Dancing Did, the rhythm section sticks together. I’m hopeful Marling puts it to more frightful use soon enough.
[6]

Jer Fairall: Laura Marling understands swagger far better than any current folkie. While her ex Marcus Mumford equates rock ‘n’ roll with stadium-ready histrionics, Marling’s songs have a primal urgency that feels — oh, I’ll just go ahead and say it — far more real than those of her guitar-strumming peers. “Master Hunter” has a fierce momentum similar to the bounding, inexorable “Rambling Man” and the slow-building climax of the majestic “Sophia,” possibly her two best songs to date. If this one admittedly falls a bit shy of that high standard, perhaps it lurches a bit too quickly out of the gate, Marling failing to allow herself the space to work the song up into the fury that makes their payoffs so reliably cathartic. Still, she manages to drop an F-bomb with such casual scorn that it registers as genuinely shocking the first few times through, and the nod to Dylan is inserted into the flow of the narrative with such ease and confidence that it feels completely earned.
[7]

Anthony Easton: It quotes Dylan not only in the lyrics, but in the slightly off edge of the singing and the loping guitars: quoting Dylan like he quoted Henry Timrod, as a winking abstraction and an as act of control of tradition and text. It is something that folk music is supposed to do, but rarely does.
[9]

Alfred Soto: The props are in their places: the acoustic riff bounces off the rubberband bass line, Dylan allusion for the nerds in the audience. But I don’t hear a single ear-catching inflection in Marling’s voice.
[4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “I. Am. A. Master. Hunter.” Marling relishes saying this as much as possible, emphasising the hierarchical power behind “master” and the undulating threat of “hunter”. At the close of the song, she relishes “HUNT,” spitting it out with such a relish that I did a double-take, utterly convinced that she was swearing. “Hunter” doesn’t shy away enough from its influences to act as an artistic revelation — the word-tumble angst is all Fiona, the guitar stance is all Patti -– but its clenched-fist power is certainly an interesting direction.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: There’s blood and sinew here that I don’t remember hearing from her before, though I’d doubt my memory before hers. I like the fierceness of the attack maybe all the more for the fact that it’s unarmed, so to speak.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: On its own merits, it’s a perfectly good blues song, it’s just that it’s only halfway up a very long ladder Marling’s climbed before.
[7]

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