We still like her, kinda.

[Video][Website]
[6.83]

Iain Mew: Not sure how much of the sense of menace I get from the spoken title here is actually due to its resemblance to commands to “Finish him!” in Mortal Kombat, but its interjections work really well in a song which does a lot to clothe itself in stylish softness but ultimately reveals itself as emotionally brutal. I also love the way that the strings appear for all of half a second before the first verse before being it cuts to just the rumbling drums, again unafraid to get right to the point.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: ‘Finish Line’ is a break up song that sounds more like a pronouncement than argument or recrimination. Measured acceptance is rare in pop – desperation lends itself better to showy vocals and big emotions – but this is how things usually end. Yasmin paces her vocals in the verses and breaks them into pairs of syllables, just barely hinting at the will required to steel herself for what’s coming and maturely walk away. She’s talking herself into this just as much as she’s telling him anything. Betraying herself only once, her voice breaks as she asks “Was I hard to love?” before the head reasserts itself and the heart retreats. The swirling trip-hop provides a pleasant enough backing track, but the secret ingredient is that jazzy boom-bap loop that gives the entire song an Ashley’s Roachclip-esque vibe.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Like the percussion loop, this flirts with interesting.
[6]

Britt Julious: A disappointment in numerous ways: the vocals, the production, the lyricism. I expected more of Yasmin after her first single and her whispery vocals on her collaboration with Jamie xx, but this song feels like a poor cut from a third-rate, late-90s pop&b singer. After having listened to it three times now, I’m not sure what happens. The song ends and I can’t remember much about it, except that it didn’t really “do” anything for me. That’s never a good sign.
[4]

Michaela Drapes: Hearing a song like “Finish Line” always breaks my heart a little; Americans will never embrace a quintessentially cool British product like this one (via Labrinth), with its icy beat and hands off, please vocals. Which is terribly sad, because Yasmin has more depth and presence and heart to offer than most of our power-hungry melismatic divas could ever muster in such a simple setting. On the bright side, this track will obviously do well in the rest of the world, especially backed, as it is, by a suite of mindblowing remixes for every occasion. I’m keeping an eye on this one, I think she’ll go far.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Her voice is steel on top of unsureness – she’s resigned, plaintive and strong when her words demand those emotions. The song is of a high quality too, sinking its hooks in; the beats don’t overwhelm, they ornament and flatter.
[7]

If anyone can tell me what Commodore 64 game music this rips off, that’d be great.

[Video][Website]
[5.64]

Anthony Easton: The ascending energy starting about 3:09 almost convinces me this is something worth listening to.
[5]

Doug Robertson: Calvin seems happy to stick with his template of acceptable in the nineties beats and bleeps, and Kelis reluctant to move beyond her tried and tested vocal stylings, but this uninspired recipe is pretty tasty.
[7]

Pete Baran: As a connoisseur of 8-bit game soundtracks, I can tell you that the hook concocted by Calvin is one that nearly every Vic-20 game toyed with until it realized it might get a bit annoying after ten minutes of gameplay. Here it is flanged, distorted, orchestrated, dropped, faded in and out, sped up and down, and thus wears out its welcome in about forty seconds. A classic of the type of record which you recognize in a club, race to the dancefloor because “you love it,” and then when you get on the dancefloor the horrifying realisation of what it actually is comes over you.
[3]

Iain Mew: The continuing electro-isation (electrolysis?) of just about everything in the UK charts can get tiring, but if it means the melancholy chiptunes that make up most of “Bounce” are now mainstream, that’s kind of awesome.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Feels more like a twitch.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: Flesh Tone was one of the best albums of last year, and proved that Kelis could pull off house with aplomb. Her vocals were by turns emotional, sympathetic, vulnerable and overflowing with warmth, love and self-acceptance – all while remaining commanding enough to control the production, instead of letting it control her. ‘Bounce’ would be lightweight by any measure, but following something as triumphant as her last album with this tepid chiptune paean to partying is disappointing to say the least.
[5]

Michaela Drapes: Harris and Kelis have a powerful blippy alchemy going here. He knows how to feature her best strengths as a house diva (which, I admit, I didn’t actually know she had until just now!), and the delicious bounciness makes me want to do unspeakably uncool things on the dancefloor. Mission accomplished!
[7]

Alfred Soto: It’s a photo finish as to what’s more annoying: the “Simon Says” helium hook or Kelis’ gargling-on-chalk voice.
[3]

Sally O’Rourke: For all the track’s replay value, though, it feels a little mushy in the middle where the Kelis-belted megachorus should be. But even if “Bounce” doesn’t live up to its potential as this year’s summer jam, its beat is buoyant enough to inspire even sweat-averse me to brave the heat and get moving.
[7]

Michelle Myers: Calvin Harris and Kelis really do make a good team. Calvin’s beats are tuneful but never too obvious. His brand of dance music feels refreshingly clever in a pop environment dominated by big, dumb synth lines. Kelis is typically strong and eccentric, but here she reminds us that she can be subtle too. “Bounce,” with it’s glad-to-be-moving-on lyrics, reminds me of early 90s diva house, but it feels entirely modern.
[9]

Zach Lyon: I worry that my ears’ love of 8-bit is beginning to wane. Calvin Harris strikes me as another David Guetta — producer/DJs that do nothing to warrant putting their names before the vocalists they’re making songs for (I’m not against this practice, but it’s always the blandest ones that choose to make albums, isn’t it?).
[4]

You collaborate with dogs, you wake up with…

[Video][Website]
[2.50]

Al Shipley: Rappers have been launching their debut albums with self-congratulatory “I made it” anthems since “Juicy.” But that auspicious comparison point doesn’t make most subsequent examples any less unearned, and this may be a new nadir for the dubious tradition: a fitting fate for Kanye’s sad little Fab knockoff.
[1]

Erick Bieritz: The biggest lyrical problem in hip-hop isn’t sexism or violence or any of the usual subjects, it’s the belief that the destination and not the journey is the best part of a story. On his first single from his debut album, Big Sean is in celebratory “we made it” mode, and thus all he has to offer is epilogue, the least-interesting part of a drama. It’s like 50 Cent skipping his near-fatal shooting or Sean’s benefactor Kanye not bothering to rap about that car accident. Sean vaguely references hard work, but there’s no elaboration. It’s a chronic problem in hip-hop but particularly egregious here, a vapid, empty way to begin a career. “Like I never had it at all” – well, how would anyone ever tell the difference?
[1]

Asher Steinberg: How is it even possible to be more untalented and bland than Drake already is? Until I heard this song, I didn’t think it was. But when I heard Big Sean say that he always had drive like he had to chauffeur it, a witticism with which he rhymed such equally clever quips as “grind hard but got a lot to show for it” and “my team’s so true, we should get a camera crew to follow us around and make a show for us,” I knew that a new bottom in rap had been reached.
[2]

Alex Ostroff: Show for it/chauffeur it. “Do it like Beyonce and put it on Sean”? “Louis Vuitton Sean”? “Hands down my pants / Now she rockin’ Sean John”? We get it. Your name is Sean. And you were apparently the recipient of Kanye’s funny bone when he had it removed shortly after Graduation. Also, Chris Brown.
[3]

Michaela Drapes: I never thought I’d be pining for Drake of all people, but after suffering through Big Sean’s unimaginative, ego-laced, fuck-the-world schtick (so I guess the match with Brown was well-planned then) and the grotesquely misused “Can You Stand the Rain” sample, I need a shower and a listen to that nice kid from Degrassi.
[0]

Edward Okulicz: Exhorting us to put our hands in the air if we “love good music”, Big Sean bursts onto the scene with a proclamation that you should be interested in him, his story, his journey, his music. His journey has no interesting points. His story is not compelling. His music, far from being good, gives absolutely no reason why you should give a damn, being as it is completely generic, bereft of charisma, intelligence, stylish lyricism or exceptional flow. Instead, it contains Chris Brown and a sense of entitlement that doesn’t just border on gross, it colonises the entire concept of gross.
[0]

Jer Fairall: Living for tonight under the spectre of looming apocalypse, a potent metaphor for any manner of post-millennial anxiety on down to the ephemeral nature of 21st century celebrity. If it lacks an expected degree of urgency, it is only because it is awash in the melancholy that Britney couldn’t muster for her own end of the world party jam “Till The World Ends,” and all the more resonant for it. It helps considerably that this newcomer is overflowing with charisma, so much in abundance that it even infects the performance of The Most Hated Man In Pop, himself seeking some combination of redemption and transcendence by indulging in a newfound hedonistic pansexuality. The end is nigh. All bets are off.
[8]

Michelle Myers: The contemplative piano beat could be from a Drake song, but Big Sean’s verse aren’t nearly as memorable or interesting as anything Drake has recorded. I wish Chris Brown wasn’t the best part of this track. He sounds downright pretty on the chorus, delicate even.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The industry is so generous that there’s always room for talentless clones. Recommended to those who think “Juicy” has exerted a baneful influence on hip-hop culture.
[2]

Zach Lyon: Well, yes, neither of them are or ever have been very talented rappers, but at least Kanye had some tricks.
[2]

You know, “How Can We Be Lovers” holds up pretty well.

[Video][Website]
[3.67]

Isabel Cole: Trying to write this review is causing me intense inner conflict. Its musical merits are pretty much nil, to such an extent that as an actual song it is basically indefensible, and I will put up no opposition to anyone giving it a zero. Judged as a cultural artifact, however, and evaluated according to how much happiness it brings me, it is kind of awesome, combining as it does three of my favorite things: stupid jokes, The Lonely Island, and Pirates of the Caribbean (itself containing both stupid jokes and lonely islands). Ultimately, I base my ratings on how much I actually want to listen to a song, since trying to assign a number the actual “quality” (whatever that means) of a song would drive me up a wall, and thus it is with some (but not a lot of) guilt that I give this what I would bet money is the highest score it will receive. I tried to go lower but it clung to the life rafts of Bolton’s hilariously excited “Now back to the good part!” and Andy Samberg calling himself a “fuck-you-twice guy.” Which brings me to my final justification: it’s important to be a supportive girlfriend, and given that our relationship is already strained by long distance, the demands of fame, and the fact that we have never met, I wouldn’t want to do anything to undermine my future husband’s creative endeavors. Call me, Andy – I got some coves that need exploring.
[7]

Michelle Myers: A good comedy song should have a funny premise, but a great comedy song uses the music itself to enhance the humor. This used to be Lonely Island’s strength. “Dick In A Box” wasn’t funny because penises-as-gifts are funny (well, okay, they kind of are), but because it was such a well-executed parody of a New Jack Swing sex ballad. “I’m On A Boat” satirized T-Pain’s brand of bombastic party-rap while featuring T-Pain. “Jack Sparrow” isn’t particularly funny at all. Michael Bolton jokes are about as funny as Chuck Norris jokes these days (not very much so at all). I’m not really sure how Michael Bolton inappropriately singing about movies is a comedic scenario. The real shame though, is that The Lonely Island boys’ verses are such pure filler. This is a missed opportunity to add some cheek to an unfunny song. Perhaps they could have saved this one with some of their brand of clever party-music parody and witty lyrics, but for some reason, they chose not to.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: Fuck ironic juxtaposition – Bolton’s bit can stay, though. Its straight man summary has more energy and more wit than the Lonely Island’s actual gags.
[2]

Jonathan Bogart: Fuck the haters: both the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and Michael Bolton are awesome. (Up to a point, I mean; I haven’t seen the fourth one or listened to any album tracks.) Which is why I think the Island boys whiffed here: if they’d created a song that was just about Bolton riffing ridiculously on Johnny Depp’s kohl-eyed jester of Tortuga, it could have been some truly inspired pop lunacy, on the level of the Jimmy-Fallon-as-Neil-Young covers. By wrapping it in the conceit of him interrupting a boring club song, it gives both the comedy and the song an unsatisfying stop-start rhythm; and by the time Bolton moves on to Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, and Scarface, the jokes are purely visual. Which whatever, television’s a visual medium; but I’m still waiting for the ironic-sincere Bolton revival that uses his sandblaster of a voice properly.
[5]

Al Shipley: I’d rate it higher if the song worked as well without the video. But credit for how well they pull the whole idea off should still go to that hook, which is just as epic and regal as Bolton thinks it is and makes the ridiculous lyrics even funnier by contrast.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Whenever any “grown-up” artist makes tentative steps toward Evil Pop Music, like Celine Dion putting Kara DioGuardi and Ne-Yo on her last album or Emma Shapplin deciding she didn’t want to make crossover songs that’d go to die on, like, Buddha Breeze Chill-Out #52, their fanbases roar and weep about how their sound is tainted forever by fakeness. Thanks to the Lonely Island, now I know what they’re imagining. But pirates, yeah!
[5]

Jer Fairall: Timing is everything: I just finished watching my DVD box set of The Larry Sanders Show days before hearing this song, thus rendering the admittedly pleasurable experience of hearing Michael Bolton drop an F bomb a joke I’d heard already. I still laughed again anyway, but I didn’t have to sit through three minutes of anemic rapping to get to it the first time.
[4]

Michaela Drapes: I’d give this a 10 if I was just rating this on Michael Bolton’s ability to laugh at his own ridiculousness. However, I think I’m just too old to find any charm in The Lonely Island’s flat-footed class clown antics, which really don’t add value to the proceedings. (And why are their bits so low down in the mix — it’s incongruously amateurish, but maybe I’m missing something?) I know they can be funny occasionally, but not here.
[0]

Alfred Soto: But Michael Bolton was already a joke — and a funnier one in Musicians For Free Range Chickens.
[2]

They nearly won the Mercury a few years ago. Not if we were judging, perhaps.

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Anthony Easton: The website claims that they are inspired by Steve Reich–as much as I would like to see Steve Reich work through instrumental versions of Childe Ballads, this seems to be one of those UK tours through history, sort of like a Geordie Alasdair Roberts. But I love Roberts, I love how he refuses to hide his accents, and i am all for the simultaneous pull of sex and death, so I like this, as is expected.
[8]

Michaela Drapes: I’m all for the reinterpretation of folk songs; but the saccharine, plodding and predictable tweeification of this bitter, heartbreaking traditional (I’m most familiar with Joan Baez’s restrained and bitter interpretation) is downright awful. Is this what’s passing for quality these days — uninspired vocals backed by equally unimaginative arrangements (that glockenspiel, seriously!)? Certainly the English folk tradition deserves better. I’ll take Eliza Carthy instead, thanks.
[0]

Doug Robertson: Everyone loved Broadcast. And if you didn’t then you are a cold, cold, person. Which is perhaps appropriate given that their music could lack warmth, but if you ever wondered what Broadcast would sound like with a fire burning in their bellies and with the glitches replaced with britches, then this is for you. Folk can be a dirty word, with good reason, but when it sounds this inventive and this embracing you’re reminded that even the dirtiest of words exist for a very good reason.
[8]

Mallory O’Donnell: There are so many things that the UK has taken from America, and so many things that we have taken from y’all. Here are three things we never want you to give us back again: country death songs; family acts; playing card metaphors. Thank you.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: I’d be lying if I said that this didn’t move me, or that the child-voice (or perhaps Child-voice) with its flat-affect harmonies didn’t make me muse upon whirling through a forest someplace with stones stitched into the seams of my too-gossamer dress. That would end in death, of course, and I’ve got buildings and bandwidth and stable thoughts to intervene besides. But I would have prostrated before this when I was a 14-year-old Sarah Brightman worshipper, and since I indulge my tweenage musical tastes daily, why not this too?
[8]

Alfred Soto: This is not Juice Newton.
[4]

Pete Baran: As a primer on “how to enunciate like proper folk musicians” this cannot be beaten. I am always surprised how much folk music eschews the dolorous effect of colliery brass, as they are a terrific fit. That said, for all the sonic beauty on display here, the song comes across as a bit of a nothing.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: The arrangement here is so strange on the ears, and even if the song comes from the same basic tradition as the singers, it sounds ill-fitting, like something’s been added that doesn’t go with the other elements, and I don’t mean the glockenspiel. It stumbles around creepy, fey, wispy and all manner of other moods without really closing the deal. Finally, it kind of falls over brass with its elongated vowels and unsettlingly child-like enunciation.
[4]

Jer Fairall: A musical niche I enjoy but rarely find myself exposed to all that much, I’m primed to really like this, and the ominous music box ring that opens the song suggests that I will. But for a songwriting tradition that places such an emphasis on storytelling, this particular tale doesn’t really go anywhere interesting, and the vocalist, while nicely frayed around the edges, lacks the commanding force of someone like Laura Marling, whom I find impossible not to think of when hearing this, and really wish I had cause to listen to right now instead.
[5]

I don’t think those people are in the band anymore, or that anyone noticed.

[Video][Website]
[4.33]

Pete Baran: This song, from its own publicity, is “Inspired by the upcoming film Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.” It’s not all that interesting, but if it’s inspired by a Transformers movie, it should be shittier.
[3]

Jer Fairall: I’ve always found these guys aggressively mediocre in the manner of just about every faceless Modern Rock radio band of the last 20 years, apparently given a pass on the grounds that their particular face belongs to Hayley Williams, whom a lot of people who aren’t me seem to find interesting. Imagine my surprise, then, that this is actually not bad, especially given that its purpose as the lead soundtrack single for one of the two worst film franchises of the last five years (Twilight, the other, also prominently featured Paramore music). The guitars are tense and chiming, Williams voice sounds considerably more weathered and mature than it ever has in the past, and for as much of a melodramatic slow-mosh as the chorus (the song’s weakest link, really) is, the whole thing feels rather less gargantuan than what a combination of “Monster,” Paramore and Transformers would seem to outright guarantee.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The power chords come straight out of the Linda Perry riff book, but Hayley Williams isn’t Katy Perry; she sounds terrific atop the twelve-string jangle over the verses and frightening as she embodies the titular metaphor. Teenage emotions writ large, for better or worse.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Their usual by-the-numbers Evanescence/Flyleaf via Kelly Clarkson or whoever shemo-goth-pop –I get the idea that people just like that Paramore are less offensive than other supposed rock bands on the radio this millennium. Still, there is a vague desperation communicated here, and I can see how a mopey 12-year-old girl whose world is turning monstrous might find some solace in it, somehow. But I’m not 12, and I could use more specifics.
[5]

Isabel Cole: I like Hayley Williams’ voice a lot, but she’s a better singer than musician, someone gifted with a terrific instrument who has yet to figure out how to inject it with much individuality, relying instead on chewing through her words with an affect that lands somewhere between a snarl and a pout. There’s a place for that kind of singing; I think Paramore’s fast songs are fantastic, and I wouldn’t change a thing about her delivery when she’s bolstered by such a tightly executed explosion of kinetic energy as on “Misery Business.” She toys with something almost interesting when she brings the volume down on the verses with their haunting guitars, but the chorus’s gritted-teeth stabs at seriousness come across as posturing rather than powerful, and it doesn’t help that I can too easily picture Chad Kroeger grinding out the leaden melody. This isn’t as bad as when Avril tries to go “dark,” but I need Hayley to bring more versatility to her performance if she’s going to hold my interest at this tempo, especially with the limp drumming my minimal background knowledge leads me to believe is the result of their recent line-up change.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: There’s an instrumental bit post-chorus that chugs along and gives some dynamism to ‘Monster’, but the chorus plods, and for the first time ever Hayley’s voice drags it further down. It all codes very passionate, but my love of female fronted rock stems from the fact that it doesn’t remind me of Nickelback and the rest of the boring post-grunge dude bands.
[5]

Michaela Drapes: The reconfigured Paramore seems to be having an empty, overproduced No Doubt moment. Something’s just not right here. Though there’s interesting things going on with the guitars that I think were swiped from some venerable predecessor (Modest Mouse or maybe even Sunny Day Real Estate), Haley Williams’ usually massive voice is utterly lost in a sea of excessive multitracking. Then again, this track is probably as bloated and flimsy as the next film in the Transformers franchise, so perhaps it’s just fine after all.
[3]

Al Shipley: At the very least, it’s proof that the band, or whatever studio pros are propping it up at the moment, can pull of nice guitar tones and drum fills without the Farros. But they’ve got plenty of midtempo slogs like this on the old records and they were never the band’s strong suit.
[5]

Doug Robertson: This is by Paramore. It is on the soundtrack to the new Transformers movie. This is exactly everything you need to know about this song.
[3]

Wait, who thinks they’re just fishing? Is this another one of those Rashomon country songs?

[Video][Website]
[4.62]

Alex Ostroff: Sweetly nostalgic ode to building memories with your children, just in time for father’s day. Unfortunately, I can’t help but hear “Just Fishin’” through the whole weird thing about father-daughter relationships in our culture: the presumed desire of men to keep their daughters children as long as possible — as if the only way to have an ideal or healthy relationship with your daughter is one where she’s de- (or pre-) sexualized and not yet a mature adult in charge of her own shit. (See: purity rings, father-daughter dances, etc.) But the only line that really sets off that alarm is the one about driving boys crazy and giving daddy fits, and otherwise this type of song could easily be written about Adkins’ hypothetical son. Plus, the line about “drowning worms and killing time/nothing too ambitious” makes me giggle.
[6]

Michaela Drapes: A song like this should be touching, maybe. Instead it reads as possibly divorced (that line about the little girl being “pretty like her momma” makes me think momma ain’t in his life anymore) or long-haul trucker or oil rig foreman or traveling musician dad trying to make it up to his daughter by taking her fishing every few months when he blows through town. He does seem genuinely glad to be spending time with her, I guess — but the whole recordkeeping of important memories thing is weirdly manipulative. And really, who pronounces ‘big ’un” like that anyway?
[2]

Anthony Easton: I like Adkins better when he leads with his cock.
[2]

Pete Baran: Hey Trace, maybe she thinks you’re fishin’, cos you come home smelling of fish? Actually working the plot to death works well for Trace here, he manages a very likeable adultery song which in the final thirty seconds gets downright hilarious when Trace explains not once but twice, that that a) he isn’t just fishing, and b) the song ISN’T ABOUT FISHING AT ALL! Plus two for knowing irony there.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Listeners think this is a cheating song? It’s pretty damn literal to me: from the acoustic chug to the lines about Adkins not knowin’ whether to laugh or die or cry to the rapt baritone with which he projects his irrepressible delight, this is a father-daughter song through and through. If you want to argue that the genre boasts sexual undertones, fine. I’ll admit it’s easier to make the argument when Adkins can toss asides like “Nuthin’ too ambitious” through a grin as wide as the Mississippi. It’s no “I’m Tryin’,” one of the best country songs of the decade, but he’s made easy look easy almost as long.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: Since “You’re Gonna Miss This” proved that Adkins can do smart poker-faced tearjerkers better than almost anybody, and since my boy’s getting a fishing pole for his birthday, AND since Adkins’s vision of fishing isn’t just a boy’s club, I was all set to hand “Just Fishin’” my still-beating heart — even despite the word “big ’un’” — until the ad-libs at the end. Really, Trace?? “This ain’t about fishin’”??? You don’t have to treat your audience like we’re your six-year-old daughter.
[5]

Isabel Cole: I feel like if I had ever followed through on my vague wish to learn more, meaning anything, about country music, I would like this better. That’s not a dig at country; some things are just better understood with background knowledge of the traditions in which they operate. Without that, I’m left listening to a pretty, sweet, slightly dull song, by a man with a pretty, sweet, slightly dull voice, with lyrics that…. The Jukebox is not a therapist’s office (the decor is less chintzy, for a start), but I cried at that stupid-ass episode of Lost where we’re supposed to give sideways-Jack a cookie for being all “whoa, maybe I should stop being a shitty dad???” and I love working with children, so you can maybe imagine how someone who seems like an actual decent father poignantly capturing the restless exuberance of a little kid whose thoughts flit from ballet shoes to training wheels give this an extra point in my book.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: I have to be imagining this, right? When Trace goes off on how his can’t-be-older-then-eight daughter is all pretty, will make the boys crazy, just like her mom, time’s ticking away, etc. It isn’t even just the “well, what if she doesn’t much attract the guys, or doesn’t want to, where’s her say?” rejoinder you can always make; it’s that now none of the other lines sound anything but dodgy, lost in her holding that pink rod and whatnot, and UGH WHY.
[4]

She did pretty well last time, too…

[Video][Website]
[7.14]

Anthony Easton: Sunny has such a catch in her voice, and is a master of moral ambiguity. This song, not a cheating song or an angry song, but a work about the delicate calculation that one constructs in the midst of emotional and sexual relationships, is less explicit than last year’s single, but it sounds like the mascara smeared with tears that feature so prominently in the video.
[10]

Jonathan Bogart: The problem with tackling such universal material — we’ve all been in places where staying was worse than leaving, even if it just means quitting a bad job — with less-than-stellar songwriting is that the emotional content can take a back seat to the trying-to-hard craftsmanship. Never mind that treason, reason, and breathin’ don’t rhyme with leavin’ — awkwardly shoving grievin’ in to fit the scheme pulls me out of the song and makes me think of the Nashville songwriting team high-fiving each other for forcing the rhyme.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Sunny presses about ten songs’ melodies together until some of the parts stick — the cadence on “stay-y-y-ing” in particular is about five songs in one — then squeezes the remaining notes, as if through a frosting tube, into a smooth guitar part. Simple craftsmanship is still craft.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Sunny has a powerful twang and sings the hell out of the song, but she’s not so great she can give it the friction it needs. It’s a pretty melody, but it’s not really much more . On “From A Table Away” she inhabited the narrative and sold her breaking but numbed heart, whereas here she’s trying to sell a bunch of words thrown together around a couple of five-dollar-phrases. As such, the words speak to nothing in particular, no matter how sweetly they’re sung. Which is pretty sweetly, mind you, but this woman has shown she can act out the toughest stories in country.
[7]

Iain Mew: I got such a rollicking me-against-the-world feel from the jangle that the defiance of “I don’t care who passes judgement on my reasons” was the only line to really hit on the first few goes round, and it’s actually pretty enjoyable on that level! Then the full extent of its bleakness tinted with hope slowly revealed itself and, damn, that’s some powerful stuff. The wrenching “This freedom feels a lot like treason” alone conveys more conflicted guilt than many a whole song could manage.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: A gentle midtempo number that’s a little too underwritten to hit me as hard as it could. Her voice is warm, though, and the fiddle counterpoint is lovely. Sweeney can pen subtly evocative lines, and there are some doozies here. “This freedom feels a lot like treason,” rightfully belongs in ‘Back to December,’ while “you can keep your pride and blame me, if you need to,” captures entire Miranda Lambert songs in a single line. Given her obvious talent, there’s no excuse for placeholder contrasts of better/worse, blessing/curse and lines like “trust me, it’s really bad.” Still, Taylor and Miranda have written clunkers in their time.
[7]

Michaela Drapes: My Texas homegirl certainly has all the right elements going here, namely a heavy dose of Dixie Chickishness tempering the serious, real-world-problem story, but the odd you/we/my perspective shifts in the lyric makes it confusing as to what’s going on here. Is he leaving? Is she? Are they going to give it another go? This ambiguity is so distracting. But maybe I’m just thinking too hard? That being said, “our love has died/but somehow we’re still breathing” is a stand-out moment in that mess; I wish the rest of the lyric was as consistently good, because Sunny’s got the voice to support a stronger sardonic turn of phrase — the kind that turns middling country songs into timeless ones.
[5]

So would their name be a contradiction, an oxymoron or just, you know, rubbish?

[Video][Website]
[4.73]

Chuck Eddy: As I recall, the disappointing 2010 album for which this served as the title cut didn’t see the LBTs delving into trusty mid/late ’70s Fleetwood Mac (sans Stevie’s voice or Lindsey’s guitar) territory more than a couple times, perhaps because they were tired of being pigeonholed. Not a fortunate decision as far as keeping the music non-boring is concerned, but this defloweration plea was apparently one of those “couple times.” Also neat how it starts out kinda like “I Think We’re Alone Now” by Tommy James and the Shondells.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Imagine “Need You Now” as the climax of a marital symphony and this as the overture. The truth and clarity of the vocals and guitars adduce the kind of partnership you can’t buy. But if I lack the courtesy to attend this wedding ceremony, blame the boringness of bride and groom. Not only do I find the refrain (“I could fall for you and not even try”) incoherent, but the sunniness of the vocals has no room for ambiguity or shading — the aural equivalent of those insufferable friends who want you to admire photos of their beautiful children.
[6]

Anthony Easton: What hath Lady Antebellum wrought? Or can we blame this on Taylor Swift – there is no reason this song should exist. The exquisite production drains rather then adds meaning. I love countrypolitian, I love chart country, I love when the slick production becomes a formalist cover for genuine heartbreak, and I even love when slick production becomes a formalist cover for slick artifice. I love to strip the fake tinsel of Nashville and find the real tinsel underneath (to paraphrase Oscar Levant) and so when I call this artificial and fake and slick and plastic, I feel like a bit of a hypocrite, because artificial and fake and slick and plastic are things that provide my life meaning. But this commits the cardinal sin – it is a betrayal of the studio as an instrument.
[3]

Josh Langhoff: Until the drummer rears his head during the outro, this inexplicable title track sounds like a Full Moon Fever throwaway, only with better singing and less interesting lyrics than what Tom Petty’s capable of. Actually, Little Big Town are also capable of better lyrics. But this does lay back and groove with some confidence, whether deserved or not.
[6]

Michaela Drapes: There’s a reason middle-of-the-road journeyman country acts never quite bust up to the top of the charts consistently and split for crossoverville. The plodding chorus and limp hook of “The Reason Why” are terribly dreary; all I hear here is bunch of really great musicians who are in desperate need of a better producer or better material — or both. The lead single from this album, “Little White Church,” performed well in this space, but I found it merely serviceable and not nearly as great as it could have been.
[3]

Matthew Harris: I have a feeling these guys and gals think they’re Fleetwood Mac Jr. Unfortunately, they seem to have skimmed past the “glorious mess” and “musical geniuses” chapters of Mac’s bio and only read up on the harmonies, bounce and jangle. The lyrics, for starters, are blank trash. A spambot with a rhyming dictionary could melt my heart faster. But I’m not an excessively cruel critic: I can give them points for scrubbing their pop clean and smooth. Sure, the song’ll never get laid in that outfit, but more the reason to give it A for effort, eh?
[6]

Isabel Cole: A promising, intriguingly subdued opening hook gives way to disappointment at verses that never rise above serviceable; singing that rings honest at the start feels just unimaginative when four (!) minutes later we are hearing the exact same delivery that wasn’t particularly interesting the first time. A few nice moments of instrumentation, but the whole affair is weighed down with a doggedly bland chorus.
[3]

Zach Lyon: If your four-part harmony could reasonably be performed by one multitracked band member, it might be time to tweak it a bit. The cleanliness here, and the complete lack of lyrical tension/depth/anything-at-all makes this fall somewhere into the uncanny valley, robotic, less-than-human, a bit nauseating. It’s the effect commercial country used to have on me before my ears grew attuned to its sounds. Maybe I still need some more experience, then.
[4]

Josh Love: Little Big Town makes me want to break out all of the hoary sports cliches about teams that play well as a unit and are more than the sum of their parts. The solo verses here, especially the guy’s, are extremely generic bordering on totally artless. But those harmonies cover over a multitude of sins.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: The song doesn’t cut, which is a real shame because they sure brought enough gauze.
[4]

Pete Baran: A country music radio mortar track. That’s mortar as in bricks and mortar, not mortar bombing. It’s a totally fine, thoroughly serviceable track which sticks together everything else around it. It is probably impossible to dislike it if you like country, but I also think it’s impossible to like it too much. Little Big Town have made better records, but if this is their low point, they should be pretty happy.
[5]

Brought to you by Weezy and Demand Media.

[Video][Website]
[3.55]

Alfred Soto: In which Wayne shows a stripper his heart of gold and non-existent melodic sense. If it were a better performance it’d be far more condescending.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Oh, fuck off already with your savior-john fantasy and your lechery disguised as concern. There’s only one person who’s qualified to state whether this woman knows how to love, and a) it sure as fuck isn’t Lil Wayne, and b) whoever is the unlucky subject of this song deserves a national apology for being subjected to this infantilizing public shame-along and forced pity. He can’t even sing, I don’t know who’s playing the guitar, and this sub-“I’m in Luv with a Stripper” shit is going to soundtrack so much emotional mansplaining that I am literally about to throw up.
[0]

Mallory O’Donnell: Wow. This totally doesn’t wash away the stain of his usual sexist, bullshit claptrap that he phones in when he guests on every track ever made. If you ever thought this asshole was worth something, please hand in your game card now. This is absolute garbage, and his whole career is YOUR GODDAMN FAULT.
[0]

Jonathan Bradley: Think back to 2005, when Weezy jumped on Robin Thicke’s white soul burner “Shooter.” Then, he bounced off the non-standard instrumentation to create a richly layered, unconventional and unexpected work. The damp R&B of “How to Love” is the exact opposite: Wayne robbed of personality and charisma, his lyrics vacant, his presence perfunctory. Infected with even more Jason Mraz swag than the most recent Bruno Mars single, the sensitive bro guitar backing and tepid romanticism is begging for nothing less than John Belushi to take command of the proceedings.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: The simple guitar/beat combo is the perfect basis for something hypnotic or spare or thoughtful or anything other than Lil Wayne lazily drawling complete nonsense over the top of it. “Moments that didn’t last forever”? Really? Get a dictionary, please, that’s pretty much what moments don’t do. Also write some more song so you’re not repeating your clunkers endlessly. Enterprising rappers should pinch the backing and do something coherent over it.
[3]

Josh Love: It’s practically unheard of for a rapper as clever as Wayne to sacrifice his articulateness in the service of the feeling of a song. If Drake had done “How to Love” there’d have been eight terrible puns, and he would’ve figured out some way to make the whole thing about himself. But when Weezy slips into a higher register about halfway through, it’s sheer bliss. The track gives off a strong whiff of the coffeeshop, but Wayne easily retains enough of his spacy, playful autotuned charm that it’s far less a pander than an exhilarating crossover.
[8]

Michelle Myers: Nobody autotunes like Wayne. It’s like his voice is so resistant to staying on pitch that it can only bubble and gurgle around its computerized melody, floating about some artificial facsimile of acoustic guitars. It’s a sensitive guitar ballad ran through a food processing plant. In a good way, of course.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: For a long time I’ve beeing imagining a popstar mythography analogous to superhero universes; in these daydreams Lil Wayne occupies a space that a Steve Ditko character like Spider-Man does: stringy and jokey, goofy and slightly creepy, apparently second-string comic relief but unexpectedly powerful and central when the storytelling conventions demand it. And here the storytelling conventions have done just that: this is Wayne’s equivalent of a Very Special Issue, one in which the mask drops and we’re left with not the jokester or the four-color (anti)hero or even the multiple-identity crises which have become rote at this point, but just a guy. Looking at a girl. And trying to bridge the space between them. The message-board fanboys are unanimous in their disgust: where’s the fight scene? the quips? the post-adolescent rage and angst? this is supposed to be the Spectacular Weezy-Man, not the Spectacular Some Woman He Met Somewhere. She’s not even going to be in the next issue, and I’m supposed to give a shit? But the economy of the art and dialogue are proof against all their disgruntled bitching; it won’t set the sales charts on fire or even win any awards, but the people who identify with its fumblingly sincere portrait of female pain and isolation thanks to male aggression and entitlement (present company included) will cherish it long after the next crossover bonanza in the next issue, don’t miss it true believers, has faded from memory. Something like that, anyway. I haven’t listened to it enough times.
[8]

Zach Lyon: Oh lord, is he really trying to evolve from Rebirth? That’s the career strain he wants to follow? It’s the same deal, where the song is completely overrun by its own concept so instead of going anywhere it just repeats the same boring bullshit over and over. And Weezy just sits back and goes, “Look what I’m doing! I’m making my 311 song!” never realizing that no one actually likes 311. Or Velvet Revolver, for that matter.
[3]

Doug Robertson: Dull, uninvolving and with all the emotional fulfilment of a tube of primula, Lil Wayne might as well be singing this to a cup. And not even his favourite cup.
[2]

Al Shipley: It’s more tolerable than it has a right to be, mainly by virtue of being threadbare instead of over the top, but Wayne’s attempts at melodic songforms are still an insult to every singer he’s ever shared a track with. If he didn’t get this crap out of his system with Rebirth, then we might as well just change Tha Carter IV‘s title to Afterbirth.
[2]