Who’s got one thumb and a Youtube account?
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[4.33]
Iain Mew: I will have to be careful to avoid becoming one of those guys who use “unthreatening” as a pejorative here, but the wording of the chorus to this assured but lightweight début from The UK’s Answer To Justin Bieber is devilishly ingenious. It casts Conor simultaneously as irresistible, interested and mostly passive, just unable to help himself in the face of all the pretty girls who keep approaching him. Never quite saying what he’s doing with them, just that he keeps getting in trouble. That perfect crafting makes it doubly puzzling that the first verse mentions in passing “this pretty young thing that I got waiting for me back at home,” turning him instantly from most eligible into a dick who possibly can’t stop cheating. How did that get missed?
[3]
Anthony Easton: The problem with this sort of shit is that Girls have no distinguishing characteristics. They might be pretty or sweet, but they only exist to provide pleasure for Mr. Maynard, and you get the distinct uncomfortable residue that they cannot say no because he might not allow them to say no.
[0]
Jer Fairall: More Timberlake than Bieber, his young voice is nevertheless painfully drab and thin, leaving this without a crucial center of gravity. A shame given how everything else about this track absolutely hums, from the twitchy buzz of the groove to the jerky momentum of the chorus. Let the remixers loose on this one to beef it up to the point that the vocal barely registers and I’ll have at least two additional points to hand it.
[6]
John Seroff: Surprisingly confident and accomplished for a first R & B single, especially one headlined by a white boy named Maynard over a title lifted from Oklahoma. The hook is minimal and bass-heavy, a less dark “Break Up”; Conor fills it snugly, as well or better than Mario and miles beyond Sean Garrett. It’s an obvious Timberlake template of course, but when was the last time you heard the generic brand and didn’t miss Justin on the track? Conor holds his own.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: It’s “SexyBack” with slightly more of a tune and vastly inferior sonics. Which means that it barely has any tune and is a cluttered mess and as such not an improvement. Girls might buy this but I don’t expect them to like it much, they’re too smart for it. Stay in school, young pop sensations.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: But Conor Maynard is new. He doesn’t need to make a gross, horny “oh hi, I’m all grown up from my boy band” track.
[2]
Brad Shoup: Every time someone intones “Houston…” I think about those poor fucks at NASA. (“It happened like one time!”) The song come off as an exercise in PG Timberlake: the same marks hit over and over, falsetto folded into harmonies, intensity that ramps to no release. Promising start, though, especially with this worldwide Justin shortage.
[5]
W.B. Swygart: Do you get the feeling he may not have seen Apollo 13? Anyway, he occasionally strays from politeness (that whole “launch my rocket” business — urrgh), but for the most part these lyrics are pop along the ultra-standard “Woman, eh? Fellers? Eh? Crikey” template, like Andy Williams meeting the Far East Movement and buying crockery. The kind of thing British pop has a remarkable knack for losing down the back of the sofa, but decent enough.
[5]
Alfred Soto: As silly as Justin, and as unconvincing; I don’t need to tell you about boys who need to convince you that women are great. But the beat wouldn’t shame Pharrell circa 2001, which says something about Maynard’s forebears. Although silliness can signify by itself, the hint of warmth in our boy’s tone suggests he might actually essay a ballad, like, soon, in which case it’s time to head for the hills using Bruno Mars and his grenades as decoys
[6]