Let’s just call this the “Hackson Five.”

[Video][Website]
[2.25]

Katherine St Asaph: It’s depressing quote time again: “My voice is on the No. 1 track of the whole UK! Granted, I had to pretend to be a 12-year-old boy, but it’s all good, right!” This would be Vula Malinga, session vocalist and Glastonbury co-headliner (with Basement Jaxx), now Kelli-Leighed into anonymity on this pitch-shifted Jackson 5 “sample” she sings. (“Congrats on the No. 1 @SigalaMusic!! Might get to meet u one day…”) As a piece of industry sausagemaking, the ghostsinging is both more of a secret and more sad than, say, the existence of Max Martin; as a musical element, the sample is a glorified Alvin and the Chipmunking that in its malignant perkiness is reminiscent of nothing more than a house remix of “It’s a Small World.” It’s hard to recall the house revival being exciting now that it’s endless repetitions of this: faceless, interchangeable performers (can you name one thing about Sigala? Are you sure he isn’t actually Sigma in disguise?) ransacking music for proven crowd-pleasing hooks and hiring vocal talent to invisibly sterilize them. Which would you rather hear: a solo Vula Malinga single, or ten more of this?
[1]

Micha Cavaseno: The EDM equivalent of those commercials based around meme humor, “Easy Love” knows everyone’s gonna hear the Jackson 5 bit and be amused and delighted, and as a result Sigala know they don’t have to come up with a thing worth noting. The same rolling house piano, filters, drum patterns — it’s about as lazy a song as you could ask for.
[0]

Natasha Genet Avery: Here in the Bay Area, one of the classic rock radio stations recently turned its sights on the newest genre to go classic, rebranding itself as the “The Throwback Station” with a 24-hour rotation of songs from the 90s and mid-aughts. As other stations have picked up on the trend, Boyz II Men are getting as much airplay as Demi Lovato on Thursdays. Given our insatiable nostalgia (or at least, a perceived nostalgia that brands and opportunistic artists have capitalized on), this is the fodder we deserve: a canned “tropical” EDM track poorly interpolating “ABC.”
[2]

Jonathan Bogart: At least Crazy Frog was slightly amusing the first time.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: Confession: I’ve never liked the Jackson 5; they’re too cutesy-poo for me by a mile. I’m not a fan of kiddie voices, and on those early J5 records, that’s what MJ’s got. “Easy Love” marries vocal samples from “ABC” (which I’ve especially never liked) with a boilerplate uptempo “Ibiza house” sound. Its maker has admitted that he made it late one night in his bedroom, drunk, and it sounds like it.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: “ABC” is such an indelible classic that you can awkwardly shove the pitch up until it creaks and the hooks still burrow in. But Sigala take a fat piece of nostalgia and cut it into ribbons and add nothing else of note. An easy hit, but nothing more. On the plus side, the kid dancers in the video are adorbs.
[3]

David Sheffieck: I’d dance to this, but I’d need to go request the original immediately after.
[4]

Brad Shoup: I mean, at least they didn’t get Sam Smith to sing it.
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