That sinking feeling…
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[3.83]
Alfred Soto: Trading on a wistfulness that the production doesn’t complement, “Heavy” has the taste of an antacid.
[3]
Jonathan Bradley: From the carefree tropical touches decorating the verses to her closing exclamation point of a giggle, Anne-Marie hasn’t seemed to have noticed how heavy her song is. “When did we get so lost inside ourselves,” she wonders. The burbles could offset the dark, but rather they seem disconnected. The decaying relationship of which she sings, its suspicions and erosions of trust, seem too freighted to shake off with mere fizz. It bums me out.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: No doubt someone thinks pairing a lyric that leans so… heavily… on the idea of weight and pressure and such, with a bubbly trop-pop confection is interesting and clever and cool. But it’s not really, because for the few seconds of the pre-chorus, Anne-Marie is transcending that to show an actual layer of emotion, and it is infuriating how she and the song re-perk in time for the airheaded chorus. Then again, I like my pop smart, not clever, so your mileage my vary.
[4]
Iain Mew: The wavering title hook sounds ready-made to be distorted in a much chunkier trop house production than “Heavy” actually has. The effect is that the record as-is sounds like a cover drawing out feeling for closer examination, in a way that’s gently charming even before she goes full Bedingfield at the end.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: We’ve reached the next stage in rips of the “Needed Me” hook that don’t get why the hook worked: the stage where unrelated writers are doing it. Setting your elaborate melisma, the kind that should seem effortless and light, to the word “heavy” is a failure from conception. So is setting a lyric about heavy stuff to a track this carefree and blithe, without even being aware there’s a disconnect. Anne-Marie has nothing to do with any of this, but… that’s kind of her most noteworthy trait.
[3]
Will Rivitz: This is one of the most, like… there songs I’ve ever heard. It just sort of exists, about as attention-grabbing as wallpaper. I’ve listened to it three times and cannot tell you the first thing about it, and I think I couldn’t tell you anything about it even if I were to listen to it ten more.
[3]