Yellow is the color of the truest camera filter…
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[6.14]
Brad Shoup: Beginning with a Kate Bushian swoop (with a further nod in the middle eight) and Sufjannish string treatment in the pre-chorus, “Yellow” is the rare song where the chorus can’t catch up to its surroundings. Plus, it’s the most muddled spot grammatically. But the minor-key dips in the verses and the measured uplift of the pre-choruses play wonderfully off each other, and while I subscribe to the Abebeian conception of pop charts, it’s thrilling to hear a full-song treatment of cowardice.
[9]
Jer Fairall: A lovely cinematic sweep of a production, though one which I cannot help but suspect is working overtime to compensate for a certain lack of momentum in the verses. The chorus more than delivers, though, and as far as credos go, “I don’t want to regret a life that hasn’t happened yet” is especially wise and uplifting.
[7]
Michaela Drapes: Never was a more cheerful and hearfelt song about cowardice ever written, but I can’t help but want to pull Miss Blay’s shoulders back and teach her how to dig down deep and stop singing in the front of her mouth — and project. Even the twee-est of the twee lady singers don’t mumble (much) but rather serve up plangent, dulcet tones as clear as glass. Instead, Blay’s voice is more of a middling muddle that drags the whole song down; she’d do well to take notes from Tracey Thorn, Sarah Martin, and Tracyanne Campbell.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: “Yellow” is the sound of a bubbly, appealing personality struggling a little bit too hard to be likeable. I find it hard to imagine anyone disliking the sounds, the melody or her voice, so agreeable are they. But compelling “Yellow” isn’t. It’s the audio equivalent of a nice painting you see in a gallery and forget moments later; much as you thought it was charming and colourful while in your short-term memory, it doesn’t sink its hooks or its message in deep enough.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Fear doesn’t swoop like this or sing this coolly. I’m all for Cocknbullkid’s second try at a career, but she can jaunt across the piano and soar up to a chorus where she coos “yellow” prettily but can’t convince me it’s in service of a point.
[6]
Iain Mew: I slightly miss the more electronic sounds of her earlier material, but she’s done a great job of… no, wait, she hasn’t. If “Yellow” was dressed up in squawky synths rather than choirs and strings and carefully considered empty signifiers of “quality,” it might be slightly less of a snooze, but its rubbish metaphors would still be really weak songwriting compared to the cutting humour and personality of “On My Own Again” and “I’m Not Sorry”.
[3]
Ian Mathers: The last time I heard a song this ecstatic that was actually about refusing to live a life of fear was Guillemots’ great “Trains to Brazil,” but the kid’s not quite as far along in the process as Fyfe Dangerfield’s post-shooting narrator was. “Yellow” is nonetheless ebullient and determined, but it depicts someone who’s still struggling to get her heart to agree with her brain. So it’s “now let me go,” not “can’t you live and be thankful you’re here?” She is yellow, but that can mean a lot of things, and that makes the song feel even more triumphant, just like that sunburst of a chorus does. She’s going to make it, can’t you tell?
[8]