Or are we dancer?
[Video][Website]
[5.00]
Iain Mew: It turns out there’s extra emotion to be had in the electronic love-is-our-superpower stakes by casting it not in present tense, or even conditional, but past. It lets “Super Human” be both the rush and the comedown, and Bayer’s careful pacing and Asbjørn’s cosmic intensity make it equally adept at both.
[8]
Will Adams: The language of “Super Human” is heartbreak. Unlike most dance songs, it captures not a snapshot of emotion but a relationship: from attraction to contact, from release to closure. Andrew Bayer’s production plots the journey, the intense throb collapsing into nothing but piano, then building into a rocket blast of a drop. All the while, the title hook remains the same, the super human adapting and triumphing at every turn. But the heartbreak continues outside the song: the video, however artful and meaningful to its creators, can’t escape the consequences of its queer narrative. The homophobic comments are few and far between, but they stick out like searing scars that won’t go away. It’s so frustrating, so saddening, so mind-boggling that these people care enough about Bayer to complain about the queer narrative in the video but not enough to know that he himself is gay; I can’t think of a crueler way to dehumanize someone’s art. But Bayer takes it in stride (at least it appears so), and the song’s power speaks volumes more than the tossed off comments, and it becomes an anthem. The two lovers in the song are super human, though they are so separately, though the rest of the world tells them otherwise. For a genre that traces its origins to being a safe haven for oppressed and marginalized groups, the past few years of EDM’s pummeling through the music sphere has been scant on queer representation. We need this kind of song, this kind of video, this sense of power so we can continue to fight.
[10]
Micha Cavaseno: For all the striving for excellence, it sure does just come out mediocre.
[3]
Nina Lea Oishi: I can’t get over the clunky lyrics, especially with that idiotic “superhuman” echo over and over again. There’s also something irritatingly pretentious about the whole endeavor, like that slow “emotional” piano bit. It’s like if aliens were doing bad amateur spoken word and decided to remix it for the club, then kept posting about their new mix on alien Facebook.
[2]
Alfred Soto: The falsetto poured like fresh whipped cream over the hook has the hint of boy band sincerity while the thump ‘n’ roll recalsl 2008-era Calvin Harris. How’s that for decade straddling ?
[4]
Natasha Genet Avery: Full-throttle belting may be overdone in EDM, but Asbjørn’s meandering mumbling zaps the energy out of an otherwise promising track.
[4]
Mo Kim: The fusion of hard-hitting EDM banger and delicate piano balladry has been done more smoothly than this, and the transitions are neither subtle enough to appreciate nor blunt enough to rouse. Asbjørn sings the word “superhuman” twenty-six times.
[4]
Brad Shoup: Songs From The Reject Bin For The Original Soundtrack For Lucy
[5]