That is, Jax Jones is collaborating with Years & Years; Jax Jones & Years is not collaborating with Years, and nor is Jax Jones collaborating with two individual and separately credited artists named Years. Having settled the ampersands, let’s take a listen to the song…
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[5.50]
Thomas Inskeep: Light but not throwaway, simultaneously airy and dancefloor-driven, this is house music of the variety that Jones has spent the past couple of years proving he’s damned fine at making. And Years & Years’ Olly Alexander is an ace foil, proving it with a playful vocal that avoids sounding like just another male singer on a pop-house track.
[7]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: More department store-friendly house from Jax Jones. Previous collaborator MNEK is here, but Olly Alexander also joins in and… sounds devoid of all personality. There’s potential for poignancy with the “Play me the song that will make me belong” hook, but this is much too sterile for anything resembling actual emotion to register.
[2]
Scott Mildenhall: Like the silent partners of La Roux and AlunaGeorge before them, you’ve got to wonder how Mikey and Emre Years feel about the use of their band’s name on a song two thirds of it had no hand in. In all likelihood they couldn’t care less, and would correctly point out that no, really, AlunaGeorge are still unified in portmanteaudom. But it does pose questions of synecdoche and Trigger’s broom. If this were an Ollyless instrumental produced with The Other Two, would it still bear their collective title? These are the mysteries posed when a song is so slick that all other thought slides off it. It wouldn’t be half as effective if Olly weren’t there.
[6]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Taken outside of the luxurious trappings he usually operates in, Olly Alexander comes off as much less interesting than usual — what’s charming on Years & Years songs is here wavering between anonymous and just annoying. It’s mostly Jax Jones’s fault, though. If a song sounds like paint-by-numbers EDM crossover, then it’s hard for even a performer as unique as Alexander to come off well.
[4]
Crystal Leww: I thought “Play” was paint-by-the-numbers the first time I heard it in late 2018, but after hearing it again in early 2019, it’s been kind of difficult for me to stop listening to it. And that’s it, isn’t it? It’s not that Jax Jones is reinventing anything about dance music or even doing anything that isn’t kind of behind the curve. “Breathe” sounded a lot like “How Deep Is Your Love.” “Ring Ring” is tropical house after trophouse was a thing. And “Play” is jumping on the train of ’80s-inspired dance music. But Jax Jones has yet again showed that it’s not about being first on a sound revival, but it’s about making sure that it sounds good.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Nothing in this collaboration disrupts Years & Years’ image as expert purveyors of anguished kineticism. This time, Olly Alexander replaces the Christian subtexts with music-as-god: Think “Let the Music Play” without the anguish and as pop house.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Rictus-grin pop house with well-worn and dubious songwriting tropes: repeated ocean/emotion rhyme; a reference to some other “song that will make me belong to you,” implied not to be the one playing. Olly Alexander’s pinched tone sounds a bit like Daniel Bedingfield, but that just reminds me that “Gotta Get Thru This” has the tension this lacks.
[3]
Nicholas Donohoue: This has an inkling of resemblance to Janet’s “Someone to Call My Lover.” Yes in its sound cues, but more importantly in its heart and soul, in its cautioned glee wrapped in apprehension that’s taken off in some dual daydream and real life.
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