A damp squib is a kind of firework…
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[2.85]
Patrick St. Michel: Hoping this is an isolated incident and not a sign that “Follow Your Arrow’s” easy-to-get-behind ethics hasn’t prompted a new trend of making songs whose main goal is to be reblogged instead of sound good.
[2]
David Turner: Passively Aggressive Inspirational Music. All of these empty musical gestures — that ending guitar solo — and a whole lotta words about how things will eventually get better. I guess it’s true, but I also guess the song doesn’t have to be painfully boring.
[3]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Hayes has a fine voice for this type of inspiration wuss-rock; as far as assembled It Gets Better anthems go, its schmaltz gets to you. Guitar solos help, obviously.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: The only things standing in the way of “Invisible” being a Eurovision entry is nationality and 90 excess seconds. It’s It Gets Better music written by people who have no stake in, or conviction that, it does get better, and precious little understanding of how music might make it so. Hayes’s dedication to the material is impressive enough to make this work for someone, no doubt — he’s like a well-meaning but out-of-his-depth guidance counsellor.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Limp chicken soup for the bullied (but not too bullied) soul. Every one of these inspirotational pop songs shares the same three problems. Problem one: they all use platitudes like “dare to be different” and “so much more to life” to dodge the truth, which is that the world doesn’t have zero tolerance for bullies but infinite; for every bully who goes nowhere there’s one who’s anointed manager or school administrator or banker or presidential candidate, and receives far more money and power and opportunity — far more to their life — than their targets are allowed. Most bullied kids are smart enough to know this, and to know when they’re being talked down to. Problem two: Commercialism muddles the message; even if we assume Hunter’s sincere (I’d wager he’s more sincere than Katy Perry, at least), what about the industry? You’re not alone, in a technical sense, when someone is monetizing your 3 a.m. despair, but good luck finding solace there. Problem three: good music is the best argument for anything, and the bullies always get the best tunes.
[0]
W.B. Swygart: It’s always nice to be told that I’m the birthday boy or girl.
[0]
Megan Harrington: I’m certain it’s easier to write this song than it is to heed this song’s advice, but there’s something truly icy about ripping apart a song that, at best, is providing minor support to an unhappy adolescent and, at worst, is hokey and avoidable. It’s a song that posits bullying as temporary and your inner light as something so incandescent it will glow even as you consciously dim it in an effort to better assimilate with your peers. I’ve leveled up on Hayes’s audience several times and maybe my own advice would be to carry around a copy of The Grapes of Wrath because people really leave you alone when you do, but if the kids like “Invisible,” I won’t begrudge them their pop-country security blanket.
[6]
Anthony Easton: I am not a scared 15 year old. I was never great at being quiet, even when I was 15. I have always been very angry when people told me it would be better, though my life is not terrible right now. I get so angry at Hayes — angrier than I do at anyone else who tries these inspirational narratives. But, unlike Dan Savage, he shouldn’t necessarily know better, and unlike Katy Perry, there is something to be said for writing a song for introverts. I want to give this a 0 for all the usual reasons I give things a 0: biography, smugness, arrogance, laziness. But, I am sure that there is a kid listening to this when her mom drives her to school, and it just gets her through one more shitty day. I listen to an enormous amount of shit that helps me get through an endless string of shitty days. When I was in high school it was the Cabaret soundtrack. Hayes is needed for an audience. This is not my audience. I mean, he will eventually get a decent producer, and know what to do with that floating piano line, his voice will settle in and maybe he will have a career. But context is vital.
[6]
Brad Shoup: I feel like if this were from a theatrical book — as implied by Hayes’s showy leap in the refrain — we’d be much more forgiving toward this, a song with an assumptive Dan Savage co-write. But pop succor is graded much more harshly than pop joy. Hayes tears himself up, just trying to get to you, riding down on sturdy snarework and John Mayer-style neon guitar feels. This lacks the directness of “Beautiful” — it’s talk and talk and not enough space for a rejoinder, or at least a leveling solo. Its intentions are good, but like a teacher’s.
[5]
Iain Mew: I was the target of hurtful words plenty of times at school. I don’t get Hunter Hayes’s attempts at reassurance through singing “you’re not invisible,” because in those situations I sure as fuck didn’t ever wish to be more visible. Being bullied means other people have noticed you, and if feeling lonely could be related, it’s still not the same thing. On the other hand, think through what Hayes triumphantly presents as the outcome once it gets better — “that pain is gonna be invisible.” Invisible things are still there. That could be something worth talking about if it was deliberate, but it would take some acknowledgement of complexity, and that’s more than the one dimensional arrangement and performance have to offer.
[1]
Will Adams: Don’t worry, you guys, the pain will become invisible — basically, all those scars and bruises you have? They’re gonna be on the inside. They’ll manifest themselves in your older life and probably fuck up the way you interact with the world. But whenever you feel down, just pop on this tune and Hunter Hayes will remind you that the pain is invisible, or here’s to people who have felt invisible, or don’t you wish you were invisible, or something like that. Keep on smiling! You’ve internalized the pain already.
[1]
Jonathan Bradley: Maybe the Hayes mope is stoking my perversity, but “in their narrow minds there’s no room for anyone who dares to do something different” brings sulky Randian übermenschen to my mind, not picked-on middle-schoolers.
[2]
Alfred Soto: “There’s more to life than what you’re feelin’ now” right on. “Doing something different,” really? To fight bullies you need fists, not platitudes.
[1]