Tears on her pillow, pain in her heart, caused by you-ou-ou-ou = COMMENCE GUITAR ONSLAUGHT…
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[6.07]
Dave Moore: Excellent ballad from the best (by some distance) of the post-Miley crop of Disney cross-platformers. Quiet, staccato power chord build-up gives her a nice spotlight for a more modest use of her big voice than the Paramore-esque blarings she indulges a bit during the inevitable pop-punk power surge (they put it off as long as they can to let the tension mount, but the shift is anticlimactic). The song’s underlying sweetness remains unmoved amid the chug, like a sapling surviving a brief hurricane in the middle of a shopping mall.
[8]
Doug Robertson: Demi, created through the Disney production line that has managed to do for music what those Parental Advisory stickers never quite succeeded, sings songs that have been written for her by the Jonas Brothers. Which means that’s she’s singing songs that even they felt weren’t good enough for their own album, which should give you a rough idea of the sort of quality we’re talking about here. This plods along, feeling like something is about to kick in for the first couple of minutes, but when it does – and by “kick in” we mean “a guitar turns up” – you’re just left with the feeling of “Oh, is that it?”.
[2]
Frank Kogan: Demi sings with all these actorly mannerisms, enunciating words super clearly, emoting just as clearly so that you comprehend the psychology of the character, etc. 999 out of 1,000 singers who do this are really irritating, as if they didn’t trust the words and music to come across unless they made a supreme effort to ensure that every nuance was detectable in the last row. Demi is the thousandth, her staginess ratcheting up the feeling without losing the musicality. And she can do this with guitars blaring just as much as on a relative softie like this one. An amazing talent, and this track isn’t even close to her best.
[8]
Erika Villani: This isn’t the best song on Demi’s debut album (the best would be her one-two punch takedown of both Disney and the Disney haters, or her charming story of falling for a guy with an untreated mental illness, or her stompy, vaguely power-pop party anthem) but it’s pretty irresistible nonetheless: love as a song he refuses to sing, her pleading need for him to acknowledge that it wasn’t all in her head, the way the whole thing builds to a perfectly timed tidal wave of guitars and dominance. I never thought I would agree with John Mayer about anything, but yeah, this girl will be making a lot of records.
[9]
Alex Macpherson: It starts out pleading; backed by just a plucked guitar and the occasional whisper, Lovato sounds shell-shocked at the betrayal, but still hopeful that it’s not permanent. As the beat comes in, the situation sinks in and resignation creeps into her voice. She waits until over midway through to pull out the stops and come back out, all guitars blazing, but even this catharsis is brief respite; the explosion dies down a mere 40 seconds later, and, as if it never happened, Lovato enters the string-backed mourning stage. And finally, her voice suddenly clear as a bell, a crackling record and the tinkle of a music box provide the closure. Lovato’s final revenge? She finally accepts that “our love is like a song, but you won’t sing along” – but, having handily compressed the gamut of emotions into 4 minutes via a performance of surprising delicacy and a simple, repeated hook, she’s ensured that everyone else, at least, will be singing along.
[8]
Keane Tzong: There’s nothing good here: insipidly squeaky vocals drain this of any urgency or power it might ever have had, and the lyrics fare little better. Most insultingly, the musical nothingness on display here for the majority of the song might lead one to expect a climax of some kind, but even that hope is dashed by a payoff that is so appallingly insignificant and toothless it retroactively makes the past two and a half minutes even less enjoyable. Oh, and I hate her stupid chin too.
[2]
Chris Boeckmann: Demi is really great at that whole Paramore/Ashlee brand of angsty female teen rock, so it’s no surprise that “Don’t Forget” slays during the loud guitar bits, but, wow, I did not expect such a sucker punch with those heartbreaking verses. “Our love is like a song, but you won’t sing along. You’ve forgotten.” Awesome buildup, and gorgeous production, too.
[10]
Mike Atkinson: “Our love is like a song; you can’t forget it.” Now, there’s a presumptious generalisation (what, any song, even this year’s Bulgarian Eurovision carcrash?) – not to say a double-edged one (I’ve had “The Promise” stuck in my head for most of the day, but that doesn’t make it a particularly desirable return visitor). The line concludes the clonkiest section of an altogether leaden piece of work, which confirms any suspicions I might have had about the compositional skills of the Jonas Brothers. The tentative, marginally Pachelbel-esque opening section drags on way too long, failing to prepare the ground for the thrashy “Homage to Demi’s Deep Love of Metal” section, which crashes in from nowhere like a mistimed cut-and-paste. “Our love is like a song, but you won’t sing along”, concludes Demi, lowering her tear-streaked face as the rain lashes down around her. Well, if you must set these dirge-based metaphorical traps…
[4]
David Raposa: If anyone deserves the stinkeye, it’s JB producer John Fields, a defacto friend of Radio Disney who’s gorging himself on about 13 different types of cake over the course of this tune. You’ve got muted-guitar strums (shades of “Lose Yourself”!) segueing into Big Rock Armageddon, emo-pop flourishes (including a cameo by the string section from “Hey Delilah”) and an invasive microphone picking up every gasp and catch in Lovato’s wispy, over-reaching voice. And in case you thought “Don’t Forget” was showing too much restraint, the song goes out on a cloud of twinkly piano and faux-intimate static. I’m all for treating songs like hi-tech kitchen sinks, but it helps to drain the water once in a while.
[5]
Tom Ewing: There’s dynamics, and then there’s pissing about.
[4]
Additional Scores
Jonathan Bradley: [8]
Briony Edwards: [5]
Ian Mathers: [2]
Al Shipley: [6]
Martin Skidmore: [10]