We’ve discovered the seam of average: wordless Becky Hill hooks…
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Leah Isobel: “Dun dun dun,” as a sound, is blunt and closed-off, almost comical — it lacks the airy percussiveness of a “la di da,” for instance. When Becky and Ella sing it to double the instrumental, the effect isn’t captivating or emotional. It communicates unsubtly, cynically: here is a hook. Dance, fucker.
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: Just as there are big dumb summer action movies, the kind where you put up with plot hiccups and just-OK acting for a two-hour rush of explosions and movie theater air conditioning, this is a big dumb summer dance single. There’s nothing particularly artistic happening — David Guetta is the epitome of a genre whore, jumping from one style of dance to another in his eternal search for a hit, and both Hill and Henderson are perfectly fine, nothing-too-special vocalists. But yet, it works. Hill’s voice, in particular, is just quirky enough to sound unique, and Guetta is nothing if not a pro: he knows what he’s doing, and on “Crazy” he gets it right. Big, dumb, but an awfully fun sugar rush, like a handful of Skittles eaten at the beach.
[8]
Oliver Maier: I think absolutely every song that these three touch runs from a [2] to a very generous [7] but I have a respect for them all the same. There’s no affectation of depth — it’s boring, reliable dance music that gets the job done. Everything happening here is an excuse for three minutes of kick drum to get you through that last bit of cardio. Begrudging it would be like getting mad at a packet of instant noodles for not being tasty.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: As an Old in an ever-accelerating world, it is strangely comforting that David Guetta is still out there doing David Guetta things. He’s even got better mainstream dancepop to sound like.
[6]
Andrew Karpan: Guetta records these days generally feel big and go nowhere, but the effect is compounded slightly by the decision to have EDM dancefloor queen Becky Hill’s anonymously brusque singing repeated, for some reason, by Ella Henderson. In retrospect, I think Hill did a sharper job than gave her credit for when she last cut such a song — or perhaps the returns from the pair are just that diminishing. The loud, wordless vocalizations that tie the indistinguishable musical strands together here made me think, however, of “Tom’s Diner,” which is always nice in the cool evenings as the summer heat dies quietly.
[2]
Hannah Jocelyn: In an age of Instagram therapists, I’m surprised people aren’t tearing this apart: “I didn’t care for anyone until there was you”? “You’re my oxygen, now I can finally breathe”? I’d bet money this relationship failed by the time the song was released. Especially as it feels like it was recorded a decade ago. Maybe people aren’t latching on to it because there’s nothing to latch on to.
[5]
Scott Mildenhall: The power of love is ineffable, so fair enough, why bother with details? The power of Love Island, meanwhile, was a code cracked long ago. Boohoo deals for all and easy wins for the powerhouse Hill. The only curveball here is the presence of a pretender to her throne, but to the naked eye that ball still seems to bounce vigorously in the straightest of lines.
[7]