Squeaky clean!
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[6.31]
Andy Hutchins: Becky G is going to be a super-duper-duper star — rivaling Taylor and Bey is not unrealistic — and it is going to take obviously summery songs to get her to that level sooner rather than later, because she’s a little too young and a little too Cali to bear the trappings of winter that Adele will wear for years to come. Blessedly, “Shower” is less obviously angled as a pop smash than most Dr. Luke/Cirkut productions. While they have drowned out Kesha and Katy, they show an incredible amount of restraint with Becky, whose ebullience is the draw in the skeletal verses and the killer feature of the fuller-bodied hook, which has some of the best rosy young love imagery this side of “Teenage Dream” or “Call Me Maybe.” Becky’s coming whether we are or she is ready or not, but “Shower” is her first swing at a pitch in the majors, and it’s a very strong cut.
[8]
Cédric Le Merrer: I still don’t understand this campfire clubbing wave seemingly started by Avicii’s “Wake Me Up.” Do clubs have bonfire and s’mores nights now? Are group handclapping and boy scout harmonies the new trend that corrupts our youth?
[4]
Crystal Leww: Radio Disney pop is a genre of music that critics are loath to think about, despite the fact the acts produce decently catchy material that also ends up charting well on the Hot 100. What’s more, the acts coming out of that corner of pop music seem to be much less depressing diversity-wise than the pop landscape overall, which has become increasingly more white. Radio Disney pop is where Zendaya and MKTO got their starts before crossing over to the greater pop sphere. Becky G began her career as a straight-up tribute to Jennifer Lopez, and like J. Lo, she’s kept her sound connected to urban radio. I can’t deny that “Shower” doesn’t lean much more straightforward pop: the la-de-das, the general concept of singing in the shower being the hook, violins, and acoustic guitar as percussion are dead giveaways. But the whole song is grounded by that wonderful bouncing beat that reminds me of skipping double dutch ropes, reminiscent of what Zendaya did with “My Baby” last year, plus those “woo”s, which are so silly they sound like they could have been sampled from your favorite Migos song. This proves that we should listen to the youth more.
[6]
Anthony Easton: This is baby powder fresh, with some great musical ideas: the slightly dampened handclaps, the floating chorus, the slightly off-beat rhymes, and how she sings “shower” with a remembrance of Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” It forgives some of the worse clichés.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Strings used for classical class on a Dr. Luke recording — a tease, right? Then the strings reappear to buttress a chorus of crazy ordinariness. Singing in front of the mirror in multitracked giddiness is one thing; singing in the shower while five thousand versions of her clap and play flutes and stuff is batshit I can appreciate. As loopy as only teenagers can be. May she never forget this info.
[7]
Scott Mildenhall: There’s irony in such unselfconscious acts as “dancing in the mirror” and “singing in the shower” being spelt out so plainly. Becky G doesn’t show, she tells; it’s two steps from being called “Experiencing Emotion”. The verses paint a bit of a scene, but with little colour lyrically or sonically. There’s the guitar-based cleanness of recent Dr. Luke productions like “Wild Wild Love” and “Ooh La La”, but where that soared all the way through to the chorus, this just tails off into more of the abstract literalisms.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: The bulk of “Shower” is a well-constructed bit of alternative-summer-jam music — the jump-rope beat, the campfire-ready shouts in the chorus, the central imagery. But… those violins! This easily could have just been an energetic bouncer — and it would still be solid as such — but those subdued strings add sweetness.
[7]
Juana Giaimo: The hook is so fun and perfect to sing along to it, but the rest of this song is rather annoying. And the lyrics don’t help much, either. Seriously, who thought “you light me up inside like the 4th of July” or “baby, you make me hot like an oven” were good lines?
[3]
Will Adams: I tend to think of shower-sung melodies as throwaways, half-baked musings that don’t go anywhere. It’s only appropriate, then, that “Shower” is so dull; Becky G doles out unimaginative lines while Dr. Luke and Cirkut hit the snooze button. This should have gone down the drain.
[4]
Brad Shoup: What I love about this song is its interior nature — it’s sung in second person, but Becky holds the thoughts so close. Dr. Luke’s thinking the same thing; the close features the most languorous handclaps I can recall in a pop song. The melody is modest and playful, exactly the sort of thing that jumps off the tiles.
[9]
Megan Harrington: The sheer manpower required to build “Shower” from a hummed melody to background noise for CoverGirl cosmetics and Core Water is almost always enough to make a youthful song sag with age. I’m thinking of proto-tween machines like Mandy Moore’s “Candy” and Britney Spears’s “…Baby One More Time,” songs sung by teenage girls but songs wrinkled with the language of adulthood. “Shower” has somehow maintained its adolescence. Partially this is a component of Becky G’s highly stylized vocal, but mostly it’s a quality of her magical chorus. Dancing in the mirror and singing in the shower — I suppose it’s as pervy as you want it to be, but at least these are tried and true high school girl pastimes.
[8]
David Turner: I talk to myself all the time. It must’ve started on early days of staying home by myself when my parents were off working, and I was old enough to not be shipped to my grandmother’s house. That talking made every step down the dark hallway and every house creek less frightening when I couldn’t run to another person. Now I avoid talking to myself or singing in the shower for fear that these personal moments aren’t so, and can be easily overhead and and mocked by another. But Becky G is gleefully singing in the shower, and I just want to be like STOP DON’T YOU KNOW SOMEONE CAN HEAR YOU, but she does it anyway. People, stop falling in love, it’s so stressful.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: You don’t hear many pop choruses made of ocarina and strings. It’s a subdued effect, and alongside the faraway crowd chants it strikes an odd late-summer note for a happy crush song that explicitly mentions the Fourth of July, but I kind of like how muted this is. Bigger feelings can come later.
[6]