In which we get our shit together, and our many, many blurbs…

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[6.79]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I’m mostly over Taylor Swift’s dalliances with Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon, but I also have an impossible soft spot for anything that reminds me of The Postal Service. This sounds like 2001 and 2021 at the same time in a way that can only be described as delightful. 
[7]

Andrew Karpan: I really do think these Taylor “indie” records are getting better with each go. She’s reworking her own idea of how her songs look and feel to make music both esoteric and approachable, kinda like Joni Mitchell or Carole King or whoever else else Rob Sheffield has always gone on about comparing Swift to. She has even inspired some of the shiniest and, perhaps, best work from both Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner — whose work in their own sad bastard bands can best be described as murky. But what “Renegade” might prove most is that there’s only one direction Swift can push a movement, and that’s to the center. It’s hard not to think that she’s become — to borrow a line from a 1974 review of a Gordon Lightfoot album — an “uncompromising proponent of commercial folk music.”
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: There continues to be no song so bland, so beige, so plodding and unambitious, that people won’t think is otherwise because Taylor Swift’s name is on it. (Seldom are names so ill-suited to their band; if only this sounded anything like a big red machine, rather than a small straw wreath from Pottery Barn.) If you took the next Lewis Capaldi single and claimed Taylor did backing vocals or wrote a lyric somewhere, I guarantee it’d clear a [6].
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: It’s not quite the follow-up to evermore you might anticipate: the musical bits and bobs Justin Vernon and Aaron Dessner include make this definitely a Big Red Machine single and not one of Swift’s own. There’s a lot of shared DNA with the Postal Service, actually, and much like Give Up, this gets richer over continued plays.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: The synths lead in Taylor’s soft voice over the drums and guitar, just above Bon Iver’s growl. A flute flits away, then the mix swallows Taylor as the drums and synths and that giggling guitar lope ahead, laughing at all their straining.
[8]

Vikram Joseph: Musically, this is folklore with the additional of some gentle electronic elements; it pitter-patters like light rain on a metal roof and sounds not unlike The Notwist covering a Taylor Swift song. But it diverges significantly from the storytelling and nostalgia of Swift’s last two records, being instead a painfully candid account of loving someone whose brain makes it near-impossible to do so. Lines like “if I would’ve known how sharp the pieces were you’d crumbled into, I might’ve let them lay” sound less brutal amid delicate, skittering electronic folk, but they’re brutal all the same. I’m not sure Justin Vernon’s vocals add much — it’s hard to imagine that he’ll ever interlock with Swift as well as he did on “Exile” – but the songwriting comes through.
[7]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: While I loved “Seven,” here Swift has written her most cutthroat lyrics in years. The constant presence of organ-like synths underscores her repeated phrases, and the looping yet cut guitar emphasizes the almost chant-like quality of her vocal cadence. Vernon’s backing vocals drive it home.
[8]

Madi Ballista: The music is pleasant enough, even if the vocal rhythm doesn’t quite line up. But it’s hard to focus on the soothing twang of the guitars when the lyrics make the singer sound like such a huge jerk. We’re no strangers to T. Swift’s mean streak by now, but the subject matter here seems especially ruthless. “Is it insensitive for me to say get your shit together so I can love you?” Yes, actually. This kind of playing-the-victim framing makes me recoil, especially when it sounds like the subject of the song is in need of genuine help. Maybe I’m taking the lyrical content a little personally, but it’s really hard to get past how mean “Renegade” sounds.
[1]

Al Varela: There aren’t enough songs about being in love with someone who frustrates the hell out of you. For all the infatuation and bliss of finding your equal, love has just as many moments that test your dedication to your partner, especially when the best version of them is buried under insecurity and doubt. Taylor Swift knows this all too well (ha), mostly because she is that person who struggles through insecurity and doubt, especially in regards to her public image. My interpretation of “Renegades” is that Taylor is talking to herself through the eyes of her partner and asking when she’s going to get her shit together so she can be the person her partner knows that she is. Her delivery is almost angry: watching herself in this awful state brings out the most love her partner ever had for her, and he’s so desperate to see her get better that he has to get mean and honest about her state of mind. The production behind her from Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver is utterly beautiful, swarming with acoustic textures, soft synths, and the determined march of the drums, but it sounds like it’s just trying to power through the day — even if it’s more for her partner, and not for herself.
[10]

Alex Clifton: Taylor told me to get my shit together. I just wanted you to know: this is me trying.
[8]

Michael Hong: I saw the lyrics before I heard the song, and it’s funny how they don’t flow the way you’d expect. Nor do they carry the emotion you’d expect either: not frustrated, just weary. Swift carefully slots each word evenly into each beat, sounding like this isn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last time she makes her request. There’s a sense of comfort in stasis, though, one that counters any instinct to follow her advice. Big Red Machine mirror that sentiment with an arrangement that sounds like it’s constantly pushing forward yet going nowhere. Are we going to keep walking the familiar, or are you gonna get your shit together? The latter is the best course, but the familiarity of “Renegade” makes the former sound like a possibility, like we could perhaps live like that forever.
[8]

John Pinto: A “Long Story Short” rewrite that suffers a bit from the comparison. Still good! We’re just entering a phase of the prolific Dessner/Swift/Vernon partnership where some new songs are inherently going to cover the same ground as old ones.
[7]

Jeffrey Brister: It’s a perfectly listenable Taylor Swift song with a pretty and intricate arrangement. The melody and rhythm she has an ear for are enhanced by the swirling and skittering instrumentation wrapping around her voice, making “Renegade” something on the verge of being really special.
[7]

Alfred Soto: She’s become some singer: note where she places the stresses in “anxiety.” This confidence matches the aural crown molding: pitter-pattering rhythm tracks, acoustic plucks. As much as I dug the last two albums, time to move on.
[7]

Reluctantly crouched in his solo debut…

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[5.12]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: This shattered all expectations that I had of a song by the former frontman of 5 Seconds Of Summer. “Starting Line” most obviously borrows from Harry Styles’ post-boy-band, soft-pop rockstar drag, but at moments it invokes the romanticism of vintage Coldplay, the Peter Pan syndrome of Fall Out Boy, and the cinematic lustre of M83. “I’m missing all these memories/Maybe they were never mine,” Luke Hemmings croons. The sound of youth discovering its own mortality never ceases to sound thrilling and pure. 
[7]

Tobi Tella: I think the context actually helps this one: discovering the secret that you can release solo music without breaking up the band and sending the 14-year-olds against you. I can buy that a member of everyone’s second-favorite mid-2010s boy band would feel this way, and this framing makes feeling better an immediate life-or-death issue. But as a whole, this is too schlocky. Maybe it’s his overwrought performance, or the strange Mario jumps he’s doing in the music video, but there’s something on the page that the music doesn’t live up to.
[5]

Harlan Talib Ockey: What if Pink Floyd’s “Time” was an insurance commercial?
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: Luke’s sickly pastel voice crackles between the synths and soft, pliant piano. Then the tumbling bass and rushing drums come to a halt in the eye of the storm. The strings smother the light, and Luke chases the sunlight amid neatly tucked guitars, anguish shaken from his voice. His legs pump with the drums, and he is freed, speeding into the sun, blind and excited, speeding past the sunspots, the solar flares, and the core, and into the —
[8]

Ian Mathers: It’s weird that this kind of has the structure (if not necessarily all the sonics) of an early Bloc Party song, right? But that kind of throws what’s unimpressive here into sharper relief: Kele Okereke is a distinctive and powerful vocalist, whereas you could sub Hemmings out for what feels like a dozen or two other current singers and not really notice. That’s not a fatal flaw — the well-worn structure is the focus — but it does mean that “Starting Line” falls into the bucket of songs I wouldn’t hit the skip button on but would never seek out.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: The surging finale is much better than the lilting ballad before it, which flaunts its obvious melodic template like the least secret of chords. But in its defense, it gave me a beautiful revelation: “She looks so perfect standing there in her American Apparel underwear” fits the meter of “Hallelujah.”
[5]

Mark Sinker: Some of the backdrop ornament and riffage is pretty enough, but once you hear Hemmings’ big noisy snatched intake of breath — for example just after a minute in — you dread the chesty bellow that’s about to follow, and then you can’t stop hearing the same snatch over and over as the volume rises.
[4]

Oliver Maier: All of this bombast in service of what? Melodies that slide off the brain on contact, another nice boy to take you to the same firework show you see every year. Towering and absolutely pointless.
[4]

From an album called “Temporary Highs”, a song that scores the same…

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[6.14]

Ian Mathers: This is the kind of song that makes one understand how “quiet storm” could sustain a whole radio format; there’s something inviting and even seductive about its pensive, nocturnal, plushly melancholy atmosphere that seems to create its own weather system, one you could imagine wanting to linger in all evening. The mood is so potent that when it ends after just three minutes it’s almost a shock – surely something so imperially devastated extends to a greater length. You can always hit play again, though.
[9]

Oliver Maier: It’s frustrating, because it’s so easy to imagine this being perfect. As is, “Lost You” is just a bit too glossy, too exquisite to really convey desolation. The Weekndish lilt to Snoh’s melodies makes me wish she shared Tesfaye’s knack for projecting fragility, but she sounds disconnected from the lyrics. The funk bass is a little too busy as well, filling in gaps that could’ve been left to speak for themselves.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: The lumpy drums limp around the swinging bass and listless synths, as Snoh flutters through the mix, surrounded by her echoes, which buoy her soft, pliant voice as the mix struggles to move forward but remains stuck in the mud, then smoothly wriggles its bass under the flattening synths.
[6]

Michael Hong: Aalegra’s voice carries her tracks to the point where her voice becomes the central focus of each song, the lyrics a secondary thought. As much as I’d like to luxuriate in the track, soak up in her rich double-tracked harmonies, the genericness of a line like “I’ll always want you ’cause you take me high” feels less relatable in its simplicity and more lazy in its songwriting.
[4]

Vikram Joseph: Snoh Aandante more like, am I right? A burbling undercurrent of bass lurks indistinctly way down at the bottom of this R’n’B jam, which treads a treacherous tightrope between sensual and soporific. The nocturnal atmosphere is delicately rendered, but “Lost You” just sort of… lingers and then disappears into vapour, leaving little behind other than a sense of vague regret. There’s not enough emotional force behind it to really get a sense of what she’s lost.
[5]

Alfred Soto: It sounds lovely: discrete/discreet bass burbles and other opaque worried sound clouds reminiscent of what KING got away with five years ago. All it needs is vocal plumage. 
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Slinky, aching R&B, gorgeously sung. Little touches such as a tricky little bassline on the chorus, nearly buried in the mix, keep it a step up from much of its ilk.
[7]

Remember Game of Thrones?

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[5.70]

Nortey Dowuona: Mabel slides over a post-garage beat and bakes in in her warm and expansive vocals, pulling a parachute of sweetly stirred synths behind her.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: The whole song is a prism focusing in on that one-beat delay between “you’re that” and “bitch.” It’s a lovely centerpiece. The surrounding material has nothing even remotely as clever, focusing far too much on Mabel’s feathery, over-produced vocals and not enough on the competent house instrumental she’s stepping all over.
[5]

Alfred Soto: This okay thumper and its okay lyrics and okay reading of queer tropes made me dance in an okay manner. Mission accomplished?
[6]

Leah Isobel: On the one hand, this is cheap H&M pride float fodder. On the other hand, I will be in the club this weekend, three shots deep, screeching about a Mugler fit while wearing jean shorts and a t-shirt. I am vast; I contain multitudes.
[5]

Michael Hong: Flashing camera lights and background squiggles, “Let Them Know” is a catwalk merged with a glitzy after-party. Those verses, strung together so lazily, still manage to make Mabel trip over her stride, but when she breaks into her strut on that chorus, well that there, that’s a hell of a reintroduction.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: According to a press release from her label, “Let Them Know” “was inspired by [Mabel] obsessively re-watching Paris Is Burning, Pose, and [RuPaul’s] Drag Race” during 2020’s global lockdowns — and I hear it. This is a (would be) diva anthem, with an opening verse talking about her nails, heels, cinched waist (in Mugler, no less), and a chorus which includes the couplets “stand and pose” and “you’re that bitch.” Musically it’s equal parts contempo pop-house — SG Lewis produced, and he co-wrote with MNEK, RAYE, and Mabel herself — and classic ’92, giving shades of CeCe Peniston and Crystal Waters. On first listen I wasn’t sure, thinking it might be a bit throwaway, but no, this has the goods. And good god this’ll sound like a million dollars on the dancefloor. 
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: A Mabel song with allegations of personality is an improvement, especially when it’s so perky. Brief but bouncy, once upon a time they’d have called it handbag house, delivered by a set of clinically successful Italians — but of course, neither of those things would fly today. Oh.
[7]

Oliver Maier: Mabel has charisma, but not enough for this to be a winning manifesto. “Let Them Know” works better the further it leans into depersonalised house. As a pop song it’s rote and unconvincing.
[5]

Andrew Karpan: I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not Future Nostalgia was the moment-defining UK pop album that Lipa’s fans think it was, but this record really makes the most convincing case I’ve heard so far. It’s interesting, however, that today’s version of disco revival comes with a kind of saucy assertiveness that didn’t feel entirely present in the Gaga-helmed one a decade ago. Mixing brain-fried capitalism with empowerment jamming makes more sense now than it ever did: he can be both “all about his business” and his name “ain’t none of your business,” as Mabel tells us. All well and good, but when the revolution comes, where will he hide?
[4]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: I am desperate to know anything about Mabel. It occurred to me halfway through writing about my fourth straight Mabel single — in which she repeatedly insists that she is “letting us know” — that I truly knew nothing about her. Not where she is from, nor what she looks like, and certainly nothing about her musical career outside of a nice voice and generic pop hits. (I realize this was problematic, especially while writing about a female pop star.) But on a quest to let myself know who the real Mabel was, I was genuinely baffled at how little she speaks for herself in the absence of her music speaking for her. There don’t seem to be any long-form profiles about her. YouTube is pretty scarce in terms of quality interviews. Up against the wall, I even watched the whole 30 minute Tik Tok Q&A where she promoted this single. The highlights? Her favorite food is pasta, her favorite snack is dry rice cakes, she’s terrified of pineapple pizza, her Starbucks order is basic (“There’s nothing wrong with being basic,” she assures), and both of her parents are musicians. Mabel recounted that the song itself was supposedly written on a rainy day to conjure up something “fabulous,” and the conceit is all about being unapologetic for being yourself. And again, I’m confused, because this fluffy cloud of meaningless words begs the question: who is the unapologetic Mabel and what does she stand for? “Let Them Know” is service house pop, but the lyrics read like an anonymous Mad Libs of #GirlBoss #Khaleesi #Wifey pop culture signifiers. I’m still waiting for them — and Mabel — to finally signify something. 
[4]

U talkin’ dc Talk to me?

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[6.00]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: Would I have immediately looked up the chord charts for this for the youth band if I was still in high school? Probably! Its midrange melodies and simple, repetitive lyrics have all the hallmarks of a youth group hit. But there’s something very tacky about the way the song tries to merge a men’s gospel choir with pop rock. 
[5]

Oliver Maier: *Throwing darts at several very specific dartboards* What if there was a song that sounded like if (thunk) Algiers performed (thunk) “Feel It Still” mashed up with (thunk) “Bad Guy.” And what if a (thunk) (thunk) Christian hip-hop artist sang it . And what if it was (thunk) “not as bad as that sounds like it should be but still not very good.” Okay, yeah.
[5]

Ian Mathers: It’s not every day a guy who looks like a retired MMA fighter makes a generically (but what genre? honestly, without referring to the religious content here, I don’t know what I’d call it) stirring track that somehow manages to invoke both “Jesus’s Blood Never Failed Me Yet” with the pathos inverted and the way Sufjan’s “Seven Swans” described the omnipotence of the Christian God as terrifying — just not, in either case, sonically. Actually I’m not that familiar with CCM, maybe that is every day. 
[4]

Alfred Soto: Thanks to a gulped sincerity not unknown to, say, a TV on the Radio fan and impressive momentum, “Help is on the Way” manages to evoke flights of angels singing to TobyMac’s rest. If one of the points of hymns is to universalize a personal despair, then “Help” succeeds. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: After a truly horrific 2020 which included the death of his oldest son, TobyMac decided to start off 2021 with an upbeat song of hope, and boy am I glad he did. This isn’t just a series of anodyne “I love Jesus” sentiments like so much of CCM these days, but real, brass tacks, “He’s here for us” explication; its key lyric is “So I’m holdin’ on to the promise, y’all/That He’s rollin’ up His sleeves again.” TobyMac clearly (and, I’d say, rightly) feels that God’s here to do the work needed to help His people, and that’s the kind of messaging that grabs me and doesn’t let go. And not only is “Help is on the Way” genuine inspiration on a lyrical level, its musical accompaniment helps it to take off. The bridge here is all gospel tent revival vibes, particularly with the strong backing vocals of his band, DiverseCity (not just on the bridge, in fact, but throughout — theirs are the first voices we hear on the record). And the chorus goes straight up, cribbing from peak-era U2. I mean, TobyMac’s musical history goes back to the birth of CCM legends dc Talk in 1987; the guy knows a thing or two. He hasn’t used that musical knowledge to such great effect in a long time, though. Good Lord, this is sensational. 
[10]

Mark Sinker: The way it leans into its driving thump, playing its whispers off against its muscular declarations, reminds me of a gospel-dusted Einstürzende Neubauten. If that’s a surprise claim I’m going instead to argue — of course without filling in any of the necessary background scaffolding — that it should surprise no one. 
[8]

John Pinto: Decent, but the definitive statement on faith in the 21st century has already been made. (Cedric the Entertainer as Rev. Joel Jeffers in First Reformed, “JIHADISM… is EVERYWHERE.”)
[4]

Andrew Karpan: I like the way that TobyMac’s voice jumps comfortably between the relative peaks of Bono and J.T., marshaling its energy and message both insistently and in occasional gestures of steam-cooked soul. The production bowdlerizes this, but somehow that makes its impact more effective. That message — a rejection of despair that feels, nonetheless, impossible to express outside of the hokey self-consciousness of Christian rock — comes through a little too clean to be believed.
[5]

• Kayla Beardslee reviewed Rebecca Black’s Rebecca Black Was Here for In Review Online.
• Thomas Inskeep put together a Pride playlist and wrote about how we shouldn’t limit it to just one month for Rock & Roll Globe.
• Jackie Powell made her debut for Bleacher Report writing about midseason power rankings in the WNBA.

We like her but we think she’s done better…

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[5.90]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: RAYE is extraordinarily talented. Go all the way back to “Shhh.” Dip your toes in “Natalie Don’t,” “Love Me Again,” or “Please Don’t Touch.” Listen to Euphoric Sad Songs front-to-back: anyone with an ounce of sensibility should be able to hear how she effortlessly weaves catchy melodic hooks with narrative-driven storytelling to create coruscant pop, gems that soar and sparkle in their own melancholy. This is all to say: it should break all of our hearts that RAYE’s label has been sleeping on her for years, and manipulating until the point of public pleas for help. The EDM-lite of “Call on Me” isn’t my favorite look of hers — there’s also evidence that her label has asked her to switch genres — but I don’t care. Her talent was always going to propel her through this industry, and after having made her struggle public and received an outpouring of support, her ascent into better things is preordained at this point. 
[6]

Vikram Joseph: Just the latest in a string of uncomplicated but fully-certified bangers from one of the most underrated pop girls. This one’s got more than a touch of Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Higher” in its DNA. Euphoric Sad Songs proved her emotional range; “Call On Me” doesn’t feel the need to prove much, other than that she can churn out high-calibre summer dance-pop in her sleep. Leak the album, RAYE, I dare you.
[7]

Ian Mathers: Of course there are so many songs out there that share titles, but there’s something about the way the track briefly lifts off every time RAYE sings the title that really makes me want to hear a remix/mashup that brings in the Steve Winwood sample from the other “Call on Me.”
[7]

Mark Sinker: Promise of full prog-freakout about two-thirds in: just voice for a line or so and then gorgeous self-harmonised expansion and sky-studded firework-flower release… only the build is too brief and the release soon contained and it all falls back into the rhythm-clatter of a living-room organ’s little drum-machine. Promise broken. 
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Gloriously soaring house-pop that sounds like sunscreen and frosé in the best way.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: “Call on Me” is fine if wallpaper-y, jumping eagerly from cliche to cliche (musical and lyrical) with a good deal of charm, but no guts or blood. It’s a bit too dinky and cute to work as a banger and it hasn’t got any desire behind it. I feel like if you were to come on over to RAYE’s place she’s most likely to offer you a cup of tea and show you holiday snaps or something.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Successfully Dua Lipa’ed, RAYE releases a house popper that would’ve been a banger in 2019. 
[5]

Frank Falisi: Sugar spins, slight buzz — if I forget that I drank a glass of chocolate soy milk this morning, it’s not that it is not still somewhere in me subjecting my juices to its sweetnesses, it’s just that is being assimilated by belly processes instead of lingering in limbs.
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: The lunging piano chords scratched by the shifty percussion and the Leander drums surround Raye’s surging voice then suffocate it underneath cloudy almond synths and bouncing rubber drums, then the synths open up to see Raye shine over the handclaps, crooning her love to your ears.
[8]

Leah Isobel: Another year, another RAYE single that shows her to be a charismatic, likable performer chafing against the restraints of white-bread radio pop even as she elevates the form. Destroy all major labels, and for fuck’s sake stream “Natalie Don’t.”
[6]

#TogetherStronger?

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[4.00]

Ian Mathers: I actually think this sounds lovely, and I think it’ll continue to grow on me, but given [gestures at everything] I was hoping for a little more of the ol’ “The Masses Against the Classes”, you know?
[6]

Mark Sinker: “To whom it may concern,” growled Lee Perry in “Blinkers” (from 1986’s Time Boom X De Devil Dead): “I’m defendin’ human rights, an eye-for-an-eye and a tooth-for-a-tooth, jungle laws, animal laws, seabed laws, birds’ laws! What are you defendin’ mate?” I don’t much mind the grand, bland sweep of the MSP anthemic style — nice guitar solo! — but honestly if “Orwellian” is yr beef with the world, it’s up to you to supply a well-defined nittygritty. “Impossible to pick a side, in sentences that dance and hide!” Yes! And this applies to you as well! “The people-machines” — I mean we can all easily supply examples of such machines but if you want us pick a side you have to set out the specifics (do you mean social media dudes?) “The books begin to burn“: this is a VERY bad metaphor for information-access inequity in our current content-bombarded context. “Apocalypse! where you and I can coexist” Don’t you mean “when you and I could coexist“? “Words wage war (meanings being missed)!” War as universal passive-voice misunderstanding? Good luck marching with this on your banners. And it’s pleasing and it’s easy on the ear and it’s a song about nothing — which feels like something they once got cross about. What are you defendin’ mate?
[3]

Edward Okulicz: This sounds exactly like it could have been an ABBA song. Even lyrically it’s not that much of a stretch if you have heard The Visitors. The effect, then, is that this has a grand pop feel with “political” lyrics that you can completely tune out, which for a Manic Street Preachers song is pretty tolerable!
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s probably something to be grateful for that this isn’t out-and-out anti-vaxx-style horror and instead just loudly empty “centrism,” well and truly walking without real intent. Perhaps there is nothing explicitly objectionable in the lyrics, but its hand-waving refusal to take sides leaves this nevertheless swooping and soaring piece sounding like a cut from Simon Hedges: The Musical.
[6]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: I think Orwell actually picked sides pretty easily. I’ll give it two points for sounding nice. 
[2]

Oliver Maier: Nothing to say about this that isn’t self-evident. Vapid, bafflingly cheerful, pleased with itself beyond belief. “Orwellian” certainly makes the world feel like a bleaker place but probably not for the intended reasons.
[1]

Thomas Inskeep: No surprise, if you know anything about the Manics, that the opening line is “We live in Orwellian times,” because of course it is. God bless ’em, no one can make dread sound quite so soaring: I mean, just listen to this chorus. It also doesn’t take long to realize that James Dean Bradfield wrote this on piano and not guitar; there’s a kind of ’70s pop classicism at work here, maybe a bit of ABBA in its verses and melody? Good-not-great, which as far as Manics records go is fine — I’ll take good Manics over plenty of stuff these days.
[6]

Frank Falisi: I spent 2016 working in an indie-ish bookstore. The bookstore had a contract with the local Ivy League University. We fancied the store a punk exercise, a sneer, but really: any real independence was wholly dependent on making sure the University coterie felt good about themselves when they came into the bookstore. Their politics could be seen via lawn signs for staunchly liberal candidates on lawns next to Teslas. Their actions could be seen in #HateHasNoHomeHere placards framed prominently and proudly while two neighborhoods over, the working class and mostly immigrant community lived in houses a quarter the size of the Sociology section at the indie-ish bookstore. After the 2016 American presidential election, bookstore management decided to change an end-cap display to titles they felt fit the current political moment: titles like It Can’t Happen Here, The Handmaid’s Tale, Arendt’s The Origin’s of Totalitarianism. And 1984, which seemed to absolutely fly off the shelves. Architect women and poet men and professors in Harris Tweeds would see the end-cap as they were settling up, grab the book, add it to the pile. “You know this is happening here.” And they’d pay their lots of money and they’d take their bag of books back outside. Needless to say: I believe they are still buying the book. 
[2]

Their highest score yet — his strumming’s grown…

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[6.71]

John Pinto: Listen listen listen listen listen: I know. Even on a good day (warm, wind at 5 to 12 knots, etc.) this song is at best a [5]. But then one must consider the counterpoints, such as: the fact that Old Dominion’s weaponization of quasi-maritime law to shirk basic responsibility with a shit-eating grin and a shrug would be infuriating in real life but is hilarious in a song; the fact that Matthew Ramsey sings “I was on a boat that day” like it’s an airtight alibi for any crime; the fact that I happen to be partial to goofy seafaring bullshit; and finally, the fact that I first heard this song on a southwest Virginia highway en route to the Smokies with my girlfriend, a love-at-first-sight trap which biases me tremendously. The accordion should make me angry but somehow does not.
[10]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: I think more songs need zydeco accordions to really emphasize the lack of meaningful connection inherent in hedonism. It brings a jauntiness to the broken-off affair that otherwise comes off as incredibly callous. 
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: OD seem affable enough, and this made-for-summer country record has a pleasant-enough, lightly Cajun feel to it, but lyrically it is kinda gross, a tale of a breakup that its narrator knows nearly nothing about because he was “on a boat” and, predictably, completely blotto. And said narrator sounds proud of that fact. I appreciate that this isn’t the usual-for-now pop country, but am no fan of its “I was so wasted, isn’t that great?!” content, which is enough to tip this under .500.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Almost makes the idea of being on a boat sound enticing, and if it had pulled that off, I’d have had no choice but to give it a [10] because boats are terrible, and being drunk on one is murder on everyone around you. And it comes tantalisingly close. A break-up song with the actual break-up shunted into the corner as Old Dominion beam huge tipsy smiles at you from their happy place, this is a near-perfect singalong. The accordion gives it a lovely jangle-folk feel and its three minutes go by so quickly I can’t stop repeating it.
[9]

Alfred Soto: What a splendid title! The accordion and aggressive acoustic jangle recall Los Lobos but only slightly — too complicated for these yo-yos. But this is the kind of friendly I can respond to.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: I like how Old Dominion fully gives into the goofiness of the song. I think that could have been a good starting point, but then it turns annoying — the vocals in the second part of the chorus could have worked as a bridge that only happens once rather than every time — and tiring. This would benefit from a pause in the hard strumming of the acoustic guitar. 
[4]

Al Varela: I didn’t expect Old Dominion to essentially replace the Zac Brown Band for everyone’s go-to beach act, but it’s a career trajectory I don’t mind! “I Was on a Boat That Day” has a carefree jauntiness to its fluttery instrumentation that makes it incredibly easy to like, especially with the surprise accordion that makes up a lot of the melody. Not to mention frontman Matthew Ramsey sounds like he’s having the time of his life! His energy and jovial voice alone make the song worth adding to your summer playlist! 
[8]

It could be so nice…

[Video]
[6.29]

Ian Mathers: So I guess the moral is, if you just keep KSI away from (sigh) YUNGBLUD and let him be corny, it works out pretty OK. Kind of shocked to find out this sunny, good-hearted vibe was coming from the same dude who made so little impact on me when I tried to listen to “Patience.”
[6]

Madi Ballista: KSI’s soothing tones and the fluttery acoustic guitar make “Holiday” sound like waking up on a lazy Sunday morning. Evocative lines like “strawberry shirts in the sunshine” add a wonderful splash of color to the emotional landscape. I could coast on the easy rhythm of that chorus forever, letting it carry me out to sea; the outro, beautifully resolved, feels like the glimmer of the setting sun on the ocean.
[7]

Tobi Tella: Like going to New York and spending every day in Times Square; the ride is fine enough, but there’s the lingering feeling that millions of people have done this same exact thing better.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Oh sure, that’s a perfunctory chorus. But like sunshine after rain, like dessert after dinner, it couldn’t be any other way. And this is so perfectly fond, so full of good vibes, it’s really a second dessert after dessert, and like one appallingly sunny day leading into another.
[8]

Nortey Dowuona: The guitar and plastique percussion buoy KSI’s light, pleasant voice as the kicks and snares alight. KSI and his echoes fly up into the sky, dipping in and out of the cloudy synths, feeling so happy and free.
[7]

Alfred Soto: It flirts with the treacly, but the vocal commitment helps.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: I was ready to hate this before pressing play, but it’s late, I’m tired and I find myself enjoying this light-hearted and generic love song. What can I say? I guess sometimes I’m a little generic too. 
[6]