Ask.com, on not blinking: “There is not an official record on file with Guinness World Records for not blinking. There are plenty of other records like world’s largest cucumber at 47 inches.”
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[3.58]
Megan Harrington: I have always considered Cascada a monolith, so it’s extremely disorienting to learn Cascada is one woman (at least, aesthetically Cascada is one woman). The monolith worked in their favor; all their hits are B-movie takes on clubbing where your night out devolves in a whirlwind of disease and body horror. “Blink” is no exception: years spent awake? I hope this song isn’t an ancient ethnic curse and everyone who listens to it risks death with every disco nap. IT x The Ring x Doctor Who (the x’s are where the drop goes). I hope my cat eats my corpse, at least.
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: Still on a Clubland tour of the north west in spirit if not reality, and the world is all the better for it. Amid the haze of “Clarity” there are even slightly trancey elements, bringing this firmly into Dave Pearce territory. Like the Liz song, it’s a competent compound of sounds familiar from several separate places; added to being a cover, peak Cascada.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Because if she blinks she falls asleep.
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Patrick St. Michel: Stop this war on sleep already.
[3]
Will Adams: “Blink” starts out anonymously enough but soon dives into a chorus that is unmistakably an attempt to swipe the current Zedd pound. Cascada’s track record for blatant ripoffs stretches back to 2009, when they repeatedly and relentlessly chased the RedOne-Gaga sound. They would go on to mash up “California Gurls” with another popular dance hit and, later, compete in Eurovision with a song that was just a rewrite of last year’s winner. Copycatting is nothing new to pop, but the failure of Cascada is that they always give their retreads lyrics that are, in equal measure, empty and stupid. “Evacuate the Dancefloor” literally asks you to leave the club, and “San Francisco” throws all possible references to the city at the wall to see what sticks. On “Blink,” Natalie Horler bellows on and on about not wanting to ever blink ever, and it’s exhausting. I’ll take the sleep, thank you.
[1]
Katherine St Asaph: Cascada never went away; they’re still that inexplicably popular, long-lasting wart on the underbelly of EDM. Someone should make a list, fill out some parentheticals, of everyone they ripped off (Zedd), helped ruin (RedOne, Maggie Reilly), or stomped on (all these people, all you readers). That sounds like a mixed metaphor. It is not. Cascada is a wart that rips, ruins and stomps.
[0]
Brad Shoup: “Everytime We Touch” was like, 60% drums. God, what a great song that was. It didn’t sound like a Disney alum drowning off the coast of Sweden at all.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: Nat Horler has exactly two singing modes — on and off — which is one more trick in her arsenal than most of Cascada’s tracks.
[4]
Anthony Easton: Natalie Horler’s voice has outrageous power — saying nothing, but saying it with a full thunderstorm of emotion. But all of the metaphors fall apart, and this becomes an act of precise formalism and genre tiredness. It’s not even interesting as camp or bad taste.
[6]
Iain Mew: Blaring beats as insistent as the person telling you that you have to have another drink; missing out and even sleep cast as a terror worse than Weeping Angels. This sounds more like a parody of YOLO than The Lonely Island managed, and it’s horrifying.
[2]
David Sheffieck: There’s no escaping “Blink”: it will take its hooks, it will hammer them into you, and by the end a vocal hook you thought was mediocre will have taken up permanent residence in your brain, with the half-dozen other hooks lodged just slightly below it. It’s not subtle about anything, but it’s determined as hell to win you over, right down to a fadeout that feeds perfectly back to the intro. Go on, give in, click play again. Your will is no longer your own.
[8]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: GET IN THE BIN
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