The script didn’t account for the possibility of three principal artists, which is a pretty major oversight if you ask me…
[Video]
[6.17]
Will Adams: At last! A house drop that doesn’t reduce down to nothing only to spend the rest of the song building up to drama that arrives in the final refrain. Here, it arrives swiftly, strings whooshing around as the bass pops in turn. Aluna Francis’s airy vocal helps round out the high end, creating a start-to-finish, top-to-bottom banger.
[7]
Nortey Dowuona: Transfixed, lost synths waft in a hurricane as Aluna leaps into the bulbous, pulpy bass/drum combinations, with nasal, sealing synths pushing her back into the air, thick with a choking smog that she steps through toward the water cooler (which the office recently got as a present from DJ Snake, even though he was condemning the building as she drank).
[5]
Alfred Soto: “Baggage” has a core worth chewing on if listeners cut through the protective clatter. When the clatter resists my entry, I wonder if Katy B had replaced AlunaGeorge.
[6]
Julian Axelrod: Not as good as the Comedy Bang Bang sketch it brings to mind (“Luggage,” which unfortunately isn’t streaming), but that’s true of most songs.
[5]
Ian Mathers: Whether it’s the specificity of rolling papers and grey cars, (half of) AlunaGeorge’s smoothly wounded vocal performance, those strings, or just the whole gestalt, sometimes a track is just a sad banger and there’s nothing you can do about it.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: The fact that the principals have released previous functional bangers doesn’t mean this isn’t one too.
[6]