It’s Mononymous-Up-And-Coming-Singer-Songwriter O’ Clock!
[Video]
[6.78]
Scott Mildenhall: Does multiplying a Sound Of winner by a Brits Rising Star awardee make either more likely to meet the false expectations they were burdened with? Obviously not, but they sound pleasingly unbothered about it. For however angsty the lyrics could be, “Head on Fire” bursts with understandable joy; it must be a delight to know you’ve written such an all-embracing chorus. If there is an ounce of cynicism here, it for once doesn’t sound like it.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: The chorus is a bit perfunctory, but delivered by both with a great amount of enthusiasm. There’s also a bit of overwhelmed celebration which I like, it fits the text well. The song’s gimmick is those little gaps, and they’re the best parts, suggesting the momentary stutter of an over-excited heart (the head less so, though). Sign me up for more actually good collabs between crit-friendly pop artists.
[7]
Leah Isobel: Griff and Sigrid both have upright, vaguely regal presences — they could believably inhabit the same universe, but they don’t really communicate abandon. When they harmonize, I just hear two singers having fun in the booth.
[6]
Ian Mathers: They both sound pretty cool and collected, actually; if anything you’d think from the affect this would be a song about how they’re just fine without you thanks. Regardless their voices work well together and the chorus is such a joyous surge so it makes sense when on the bridge they sort of give into it.
[7]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: More of a pleasant scented candle than a roaring romantic inferno.
[6]
Kayla Beardslee: Without that held breath of anticipation in “I think I’m losing my… MIND,” this song wouldn’t work. I was lukewarm on Griff’s last mixtape, but both of her followups (this and “One Night”) have been really good! It’s funny that even though I’m more invested in Sigrid as an artist, you can barely feel her presence over the sounds of this being a Griff Song (TM). But that’s not necessarily a bad thing: it means that Griff has continued to carve out her niche of lighthearted but surprisingly robust synthpop that sounds distinctly her own.
[7]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: So well constructed and structurally sound as a work of popcraft that it ends up being pretty boring in practice — Sigrid and Griff are both skilled interpreters of work, able to conjure up exciting performances when their songs allow for it, but here, they are hemmed in by a stately but otherwise unremarkable song. The bridge build-up at the end saves this from total anonymity, but everything else is too restrained to make much of an impact.
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: Sigrid first stumbles in the song, all syrupy and languid, with Griff hanging back until they both holler through the chorus. Yet they can’t make it FEEL massive. Griff sweeps in, all thin and plasticky, barely holding on to the melody for dear life. When they do combine, it is big, but the mix is inflating them too big. In the last build up in the bridge, they combine their voices and once again, they feel big together, but the mix lifts their head voices so high it feel like they are floating away, floating out of the song and into space, vaporous and light.
[6]
Vikram Joseph: I wish I had something insightful to say here, but this is just a blast of lustful joy that cracks a gigantic aperture in the grim February sky. I love the ghost note at the start of the chorus which feels like a pause at the top of a rollercoaster, and the harmonies on that breathless “both hands holding onto the wire” which sound (for more than one reason) like vintage Haim. The first great pop song of 2022, and not before time.
[9]