For all of you tired of cutesy robot lurve…
[Video]
[3.86]
Alfred Soto: Fourteen years after “Barbie Girl,” here’s another song about plasticine love. If Aqua could sneak this unsubtle number into the top 40, then I might give its sawtooth-synth-anchored production and wobbly vocals more credit, but “Like a Robot” is also the kind of song whose weaknesses are strengths to somebody else. They didn’t have to write a song about a robot when the production appropriates the most commonplace techniques of modern pop.
[5]
Brad Shoup: I see they’re still leaning on the intra-relationship conversational form. But the frantic tempos have slowed, the personas are less gonzo, and the jokes aren’t nearly as good. A middling, rote electro-pop song that takes the titular joke to a sad place.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: When you’re one-note, you better make sure it’s a damn good note. Luckily, there’s just enough lingering WTF (always Aqua’s best quality) for the song to escape unmemorability. Specifically, I’m curious about the grammar here: does “like a robot” refer to the subject or object of her imperative sentence? Which one of them is cold and mechanical, and which would be worse?
[6]
Anthony Easton: Wouldn’t being fucked by a robot be a good lay? I mean, they would be designed for that, no? That question aside, with Robyn and her masterful robot boy, the dance music had depth of musical and personal sophistication. This, much less so.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: I think if LMFAO had come out with this, I might have nodded approvingly. But, and I swear this is not a typo, I expect better from Aqua. Usually their most airheaded tracks had a satirical kick to them, whereas now they just sound like a bunch of shrieky people who know an obnoxious hook when they hear one.
[6]
Jer Fairall: Desperately hoping that some of that Robyn lightning will strike twice, Aqua lay on the profanity and the 21st century techno-fetishism but still sound mired at the shittier end of mid-90s electro-pop. This completely sucks, in other words, and for all of the reasons anyone would reasonably expect it to suck, to the point that I feel icky even acknowledging, let alone discussing it.
[1]
Katherine St Asaph: This is exactly what certain people imagine awaits us after we’ve tolerated Auto-Tune and Akon guest appearances and cussing and quirky robot metaphors for so long. They’ll miss the “why do you still” before the chorus, but the song being a metaphor for meaningless, dehumanizing sex isn’t enough to make it meaningful. Everyone else thinks she’s “sexy and hot” (and everything you’re not), but he doesn’t? There’s an acronym for that.
[3]