Blurb now or forever hold your peace…
[Video]
[7.84]
[9]
Al Varela: There’s nothing like the genuine pleasant surprise you get when you hear a song from an act you’ve only kind of kept up with, and suddenly they’re making the best music of their career. “Stop The Wedding!” really stands out from the other pop songs currently in rotation, mainly for its constant twists and turns in the tempo. A waltz one minute and a frantic race to the finish the next. Most will point out the ABBA influence, but to me this reminded me a lot of stage musicals where the scene is actively happening as the music plays. You get really sucked into the story of this one too, a run to stop a wedding that is going to result in a lifetime of unhappiness and restlessness. It’s not just about what Ashe is saying, it’s in her emotions and the way she follows the strings and pianos of the composition. As if she’s truly weaving in and out of wedding guests trying to reach the bride. It’s so much fun and breathes life into the current pop landscape that it desperately needed.
[10]
Edward Okulicz: Making a great wedding song and then making it about stopping a wedding is moderately clever in theory but turns out to be delicious in practice. Having the song sound like a rollercoaster while it goes through an emotional arc is also delicious, way better than any wedding cake I’ve had. This is the big single I had hoped Chappell Roan would come out with this year by turning her time machine back to ABBA instead of “Last Christmas.” I’m going to be so sad when this hangs around in the charts for nine months and makes me hate it.
[9]
Callie Petch: I see that the Dan Nigro house style popularised by Olivia & Chappell is now big enough for the blatant imitators to start coming out of the woodwork. That said, “Stop the Wedding!” is the kind of song which gets better as it goes along, once it gets out of the clumsy clichéd verses and starts mucking around with the tempo. Ashe doesn’t have the immediate forceful personality of Olivia or Chappell to fulfil her end of the emotional bargain — I can’t help but think of how those two would really sell the theatrically emotional turmoil of what definitely “isn’t cold feet” to a degree which could elevate this to a potential all-timer. The real fun is in how co-writers Noah Conrad and Annika Bennett communicate the growing contradiction between what the song’s protagonist is saying and how she really feels through the music. The strings are just dissonant enough in the early going to feel anti-romantic, the Beatles-y guitar lick that recurs throughout has a touch of classical pop to it, and then it all crystallises on the bridge with an almost panic attack level lurch forward then backward in tempo. A better or more interesting singer might’ve done something to make it extra fun in a way that sticks rather than being an enjoyable little trifle. No “Crashed the Wedding” but, admittedly, what else is?
[6]
Alfred Soto: The temp shifts and string section intrusion complement a lyric that for this pop moment is delightful in its twists and positive message (yes, please, fewer weddings!) – and it’s climbing the American chart.
[8]
Lichelle: I’m trying to figure out why this spoke to me when I find other songs in the general self-empowerment realm gimmicky and on the wrong side of hokey (thinking of Jax’s “Victoria’s Secret”). Maybe it’s because the earnestness is in full force here; the slowdown and subsequent tempo shift remind me of moments when I’ve had to make difficult decisions, when time feels both molasses slow and overwhelmingly frantic. Maybe it’s because we live in a time where a significant portion of the population here in the States would love to force all women into marriages devoid of autonomy or happiness. Despite the slick production, this song feels real. I went from thinking this song would get major play at divorce celebration parties to adding it to my own rotation. Sometimes good is good, and a song can encapsulate our experiences succinctly and beautifully.
[9]
David Allun Jones: I’m about 76.3% sure Ryan Murphy heard this in the wild and it helped to fast-track the Glee reboot into official existence. While we await that sure-to-be-bonkers episode, “Stop The Wedding!” offers a fun offbeat distraction from the rest of the current pop charts while expertly foreshadowing the Category Is: ’70s Sitcom Theme Song vibe that Ashe has seasoned all throughout her delightful The Girl of Your Dreams. Inspired by her own real-life first marriage regrets, Ashe amusingly opts to camp up the wedding jitters anxiety with some possible supernatural quirk (did her future self deliver that “burn after reading” note?), Broadway panache and overall ABBA-indebted looniness. Love the yacht-pop stomp and dolphin-noise interjections of the chorus deeper every time they circle back around, plus the song’s stubborn refusal to adhere to any one tempo for too long. But most of all, props to “STW!” for the millions of future bad idea ceremonies it promises to derail. Don’t do it, girl!!
[9]
James M Errington: I really want to give Ashe the benefit of the doubt here, but all the signs point to this song being specifically written to launch a TikTok trend where people list red flags in relationships, and that’s exactly what she’s got. To be fair, she does spin it out very professionally to three and a half minutes, but I’m just not really convinced by it as a single.
[5]
Nortey Dowuona: Me to the critical class when I heard this absolute gem and held onto it before all of y’all:
[10]
Ian Mathers: Two things I assumed about this song before I ever heard it, having never listened to Ashe but looking forward to based on what I was reading: 1. that the song was about trying to stop someone else’s wedding (no idea why my mind went in that direction, but I like this one a lot better) 2. that it would feel so out of time, even more than someone like Raye’s work. The latter feels like shes evoking specific eras, whereas “Stop the Wedding”‘s orchestral stomp backing doesn’t really sound old, but it sure as hell isn’t in step with most other songs I’m hearing these days. This is a good thing!
[9]
Tim de Reuse: There’s endless lists of songs about “never too late” but none that I can recall about the psychological costs of confronting the sunk-cost fallacy with clear eyes. Rhyming “dreading” with “sweating” is cute, I guess, but the real magic trick is in how the pace lashes between a wounded lope and an unstable rush several times in the last minute; in particular, the mid-bridge fast -> slow transition is a jump cut to a sunrise: one of the most beautiful single moments in pop music this year. No better way of communicating those passing moments of lucidity that grip you when you’re in the panic of decision paralysis.
[9]
Harlan Talib Ockey: This song’s ABBA/Supertramp stomp of a chorus is its only good idea, but it’s a really good idea. Beyond that, the intro is musically generic and lyrically haphazard (“the sky is menacing and that’s an iceberg”???). The second verse and bridge seem to exist solely as climbs in a rollercoaster to build us back up to more repeats of the chorus.
[6]
Ashton Arbus: It’s nice to hear an ABBA-type song without the vaguely Conservative stench all their stuff has on it. Love the fakeout at the end where the increasing tempo crashes, as if everything goes into slow motion while Ashe bursts into the chapel with the secret she just learned. Proper storytelling!
[8]
Joshua Lu: There’s an unrealized quality to “Stop the Wedding!” that’s entirely to be blamed on the instrumental, with its tawdry strings that make this feel like one of those fake Bridgerton songs. The fact that Ashe is able to take this instrumental and build something grand out of it is impressive, especially that crescendo into a march down the aisle during the final act, which naturally heightens the drama of her words. It ends up feeling studied and satisfying, sauntering forward with a surprising amount of heft behind it.
[7]
Tom Feckerdt: The song’s MVP is bassist Pera Krstajic. He strengthens the weary pulse of the chorus by marching alongside the piano, occasionally filling in the dead space by slowly rising and falling back down the scale. And, as the song picks up the tempo in its final stretch, he fully lets loose, setting the sonic groundwork for that long-earned crescendo. The bass ends up being a subtle but helpful barometer for the song’s dramatic core in how it grows and stalls in tandem with Ashe’s voice. While many hits these days feature singers trying to add some variation of a TikTok indie girl affectation to their vocals, Ashe sings fully unadorned, sounding like the 33-year-old adult that she is. That maturity and poise allow her to convey her keen understanding of the tough situation she’s in and her increasingly anxious state of mind (even playing with phonetics a little bit: is she saying “the sky is menacing” or “this guy is menacing”?). Most importantly, that poise inevitably complicates the narrative, since she’s very much aware of the short- and long-term consequences that would come with “stopping the wedding,” and knows that the solution isn’t as easy as running away and burning the dress, no matter how much she’d want it to be that way. Tellingly, the song ends with no resolution, leaving you with the ambiguity of what comes next, almost daring you to ask what you would do in Ashe’s situation, and if there’s anything you can do right now to stop… whatever it is you feel needs stopping. If it weren’t for an underwritten second verse and the production sounding a bit too clean, I’d firmly give this a [10].
[8]
Jel Bugle: I’ve seen a bit if buzz for Ashe, this song is alright, not quite sure if I like the singing or the tune that much. Singing “stop the wedding” so many times is ultimately a bit annoying, and this is C-tier pop.
[5]
Charlotte Gaze: I suspect the subject of this can’t relax with his hand on the small of her back. With all the uncertainty that people have had about the direction of pop in the near term, I think the tasteful ABBA influence here is the perfect wellspring of energy that the scene needs. If this can thrive, then I hope so can Debbii Dawson, hemlocke springs and more — the world needs all of you girls.
[8]
Hannah Jocelyn: Turns out, there were other parties after the last dinner party. Some of them were even fun to attend!
[7]
Andrew Karpan: Okay, okay, I get it. But what if — hear me out here — we let the wedding go on?
[7]