Considering your résumé, you should.
[Video][Website]
[4.60]
Stephen Thomas Erlewine: The video is a distraction and not because it was directed by Lena Dunham, the girlfriend of Jack Antonoff. The Fun. guitarist leads Bleachers who do indeed sound a bit like Fun., only maybe a little less anthemic and a little more new wave…and not quite as charismatic. It sounds like appealingly anonymous AOR rock on MTV from 1985, which may be why Dunham chose to film an inflated narrative video for the song. Her approach fits but the stars overshadow Antonoff, as the song fades away in favor of quips that ultimately suggest the cameos, the director, anything that’s onscreen is more compelling than the song itself.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: One of the things going for fun. is their polish, how their stage-productions-turned-pop-songs sound like the work of people who will not accept anything less than perfect precision. A ramshackle play can be charming when it’s put on by elementary school kids, but if adults do it they just look lazy. And fun. work because they don’t let error enter into their songs…plenty of people still hate their music for a handful of very valid reasons, but they wouldn’t be anywhere if there songs weren’t so finely ratcheted up. “I Wanna Get Better,” by fun.’s drummer and presumably some other people, imagines what a more rickety version of his main band’s music sounds like – wordy and fuzzy and all the goofy shouting that’s already hard to swallow with fun. made even more annoying.
[3]
Anthony Easton: I was so uncomfortable reading about Jack Antontoff in New York Magazine — this weird combination of anxiety and ambition, of infantilizing being unable to grow up, and big money choices. This sounds like a teenage version of the sadder parts of Vampire Weekend, a kind of free-flowing referent that never settles anywhere because it never had to.
[4]
Alfred Soto: I hear “Mexican Radio” in the stentorian distorted radio announcer’s voice chosen by the singer, but the clash between its plainspoken weirdness, the electrostutters, and the way the chorus melody tugs at our memories of “Dancing with Myself” creates a puzzling disaster of mixed intentions.
[3]
David Sheffieck: Someday a record exec will manage to lock Jack Antonoff and Sia in a room with a piano for a least a half a day. The resulting affirmation/chorus is scientifically guaranteed to be the most empowering sound ever created.
[7]
Thomas Inskeep: This is how I’ve always wished OK Go would sound. It’s also better than anything I’ve ever heard by Jack Antonoff’s other band, fun. It’s also kinda what I expected from Foster the People’s second album. RIYL: alterna-hits of the ’10s.
[5]
Jer Fairall: The singer’s mild hysteria sells this; I like the way he careens wildly through the verses, sounding unhinged in the best 90s indie-punk fashion, even offering a brief bit of falsetto at one point in what scans as a winking parody of his day-job band. Too bad what he’s selling is a lyric that might have been culled from the kind of self-help-isms that one would have thought went out the last time Alanis Morissette (whose hippy-dippy conviction at least assured her sincerity) had a significant hit.
[6]
Mallory O’Donnell: All thrust, no cut.
[4]
Megan Harrington: I find Jack Antonoff inherently unlikeable, but that’s not a huge worry because it’s co-written by John Hill — a songwriter with a decent track record. Together they’ve polished this loser’s anthem, sure to be a stomp, stomp, clap, clap sing-a-long during your favorite team’s losing season.
[3]
Brad Shoup: The addition of sick-sweats to Dan Deacon-style piano fireworks is super effective; I practically have to wipe my brow every time this comes on the radio. It’s much too much, and I say this as someone who can listen to almost a whole Dan Deacon album before getting a stomachache. Antonoff has a grown-man voice and a freshman’s devotion to the Beats’ word-vomit. Look at this as a symptom, not a cure.
[6]