Wednesday’s a school night, but we’re going out anyway…
[Video][Website]
[6.60]
Scott Mildenhall: This sounds like a comedy remix of a news programme’s theme tune, like something Diffusion might have done way back when. It’s like BONG! Charli XCX quite likes you. This is the news. And it’s joyous, if a bit suspect. And then very suddenly, just as the programme is about to end, some BREAKING NEWS: Charli XCX isn’t feeling so good now. She’s not sure if she likes you any more. She’s not really sure of anything any more. It’s ever so slightly disturbing, and particularly given the earlier reference to swallowing “something stupid,” probably about drugs. “Sorted For E’s & Wizz” for the I-level generation, or something.
[7]
Tara Hillegeist: I have heard far too many songs that aim for this particular wheelhouse recently. Some of them I’ve liked, some of them I’ve not liked as much, and all of them have left me feeling vaguely dissatisfied even when they’ve made me happy. There was bound to be one that completely failed to stick; unsurprisingly, it’s the one that blatantly announces its sponsorship by Urban Outfitters. There’s a keen observational quality and strong musical sensibility living somewhere in the tangled gardens of Charli XCX’s work — I know they’re both in there, I’ve heard her deploy them before. This track doesn’t get deep enough in the bushes to find either one.
[1]
Patrick St. Michel: What’s made all of the Charli XCX singles I’ve heard so far stand out has been the sense of intimacy she establishes in each song. Whether the mood is downcast (“Nuclear Seasons”) or loving (“What I Like,” “You’re The One”), her music always has struck me as confessional, casting light on individual relationships while still being really catchy pop. “Take My Hand” gets the catchiness down — even if the bleep-bloopery in the verses can get a little grating — but this sounds a little too much like Charli XCX’s generic “let’s go out” song. Her other singles found ways to sound achingly personal, which magnified the emotions at their core. Here, she admits she’s basically on drugs and just wants to go out which, hey, sounds fun but isn’t particularly compelling.
[6]
Alfred Soto: In my canon Charli XCX sits next to Santigold: the creator of several fantastic singles and no essential longplays. “Take My Hand,” her most fantastic and essential single to date, puts her atop massive storm cloud synths and multitracked vocals, murmuring, gurgling, and howling.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: This is maybe the sixth-best song off True Romance, which goes to show how ridiculously stacked True Romance is. As a single, I’m pulling for “Set Me Free,” because I pull for Dimitri Tikovoi, but this will do: part Debbie Deb in a pinball machine full of Dippin’ Dots, part highly determined fashion-show announcer, exuberant and up all night to get lucky. (“Why you gotta go to sleep — don’t go to sleep! — don’t go to sleep, let’s go OUT!” is perfect, and not just because I caught Charli liking RENT.) Never mind that dancing with lips on your lips, to this music, would compromise either the dance or the kiss within the second; never mind that this is the slightest thing on the record. Charli’s already aced pop with longing and with swagger; turns out she can also ace the purer, harder variety: the sugar rush.
[8]
Anthony Easton: This might be one of the best-constructed songs I have heard this year. Ignore the lyrics entirely, and listen to the music. Handclaps hint at the ongoing almost pointillist digital beeps that extend almost to a siren; the rise and the fall of synths against the timbre of her voice is almost oceanic. Where the beeps widen is where Charli works a particular vowel — the A in “hand” being an example. The beeps recede, the synths push up, and she stops singing, working some kind of husky talking. (Is this what Marlene would have sounded like in a ’70s disco?) The talking is dropped, the beeps return, and the voice moves to singing, finally expanding past the tightness of the self-recursive tendencies. The layers on this blend and refuse history, sort of as a reification of Daft Punk’s worst canonical nostalgia. Instead of the pure narrative of that group’s hagiography to Moroder, it folds into and then collapses into itself. It’s almost too decadent to fully love.
[8]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: More sensory overload from Ms XCX: not as precise as “What I Like” when it comes to detail-driven songwriting (maybe her real strength) but nice in a sugar rush, more-is-more way. The track’s so stuffed to the gills that there’s no space for anything more than the sugar rush, but that’s fine enough to handle the following dizzy spell.
[7]
Brad Shoup: The synthbells aren’t working for me. They’re losing their ability to evoke. And the chord progression sounds like an inversion of a banger. But Charli’s croaked pleas to “go owwwwt” are great, the best of a dozen attacks. (The second-best is at the end, where she fights her way out of a Fairlight CMI.) But anyone clever enough to pair “get real high” with a flatline earns the benefit of the doubt.
[6]
Will Adams: In the video for “Take My Hand,” Charli XCX stumbles around a party in slow motion. She slips in and out of lip syncing. The camera’s vision is blurred. It’s the perfect complement to the song, which is similarly hazy. It’s uptempo, but the beat herks and jerks around. The booming orchestra hits add to the clumsiness. Certain lyrics get looped as if they forgot what came before, and suddenly I feel like I’m at the same party. As ever, Charli is the star amidst her frayed-edge pop. Hear how she adds the right amount of petulance to her plea, “Why you gotta go to sleep?/Don’t go to sleep!” It’s so forthright, I can only imagine myself thinking such demands of my romantic interest. She’s just brave enough to verbalize them.
[8]
Josh Langhoff: It’s a beautiful day! And holy crap, “Beautiful Day” is REALLY ABOUT DRUGS, why did nobody tell me?
[8]