Next to her.. some kind of light source?
[Video][Website]
[6.10]
Brad Shoup: Having already given Anjuli my first repeat 0, I can now bestow another 10 to my favorite singing Adele. In the execution — if you blur the words — it’s an evangelic Christian worship song with superior low-end. Each verse has a syllogism’s finality; it posits a different kind of tension and resolves it with that repeating, reassuring final line. Initially, I kept replaying the first verse, just savoring the sound of it. “Next to Me” is a straightforward, sturdy piece of Mark Ronson soul, but with one difference: the whip-panned dude in the background, a minor chaotic element Mr. Ronson could never consider. Perhaps producer Shahid Khan want to relieve listeners wearied of all this easily-inferred meaning. It sounds to me like an ecstatic edge to Sandé’s controlled bliss, but maybe that’s bullshit. Still, even where the lyric is a tad undercooked — a redundant “grief,” a misplaced emphasis on “down” — the strength of the melody and Sandé’s knockdown pipes soothe any concerns. I don’t even need a damn bridge.
[10]
Michaela Drapes: Oh, this is difficult. Clearly, Emeli Sandé is talented. She can interpret the hell out of a song. She brings it. The problem is, she just doesn’t write them very well. While this is definitely the polar opposite of the throwback dance-shuffle of “Heaven” (something I think I asked for in my blurb of that track), instead we’re now subjected a track that sounds more like a b-side from Adele or Mary J., or even Alicia Keys — and not a very good one at that. I’m still waiting, Emeli — I know you can do better than this.
[4]
Iain Mew: The Popjustice thing on Emeli’s album being a bait and switch in the same way as Jessie J’s has something to it, but it’s actually too generous. To Sandé, I mean, although the fact that it’s predicated on the idea that Jessie J was at some point good is certainly generous to her too. Anyway, “Do It Like a Dude” was inherently a one-off, a dead end with no realistic way (or at least no commercially viable way) to continue along the same lines. But “Heaven” didn’t have to be a one off at all! Being a serious soul singer songwriter but also having exciting productions could easily have been extended to an album and more! Which, above and beyond the smug preachiness of “Next to Me”, makes releasing something so lifeless even worse.
[2]
Jer Fairall: A hint of vinyl crackle, a sprightly piano jaunt, a faint “hey hey hey” vocal loop and some nouveau soul horns all want to pull this in several intriguing directions at once, but the sentiment and delivery are pure Céline Dion banality and Inspiration, seemingly the work of people resisting every one of the production’s attempts to not be boring.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: In which Emeli and her battalion of industry allies peer at the prospect of becoming the next-Katy-B that Katy was supposed to be, or perhaps an even greater diva, blink, prod at it, then trundle back with their orchestras to over-tattered hymnals and “Rolling in the Deep.”
[6]
John Seroff: “Next to Me” has a certain timelessness and broad appeal that makes me wonder if it’s not destined for greater popularity and potentially noxious levels of exposure. It is a cunningly simple song that would sound equally natural (though doubtless better) coming from Taylor Dayne, John Cougar, Whitney, Adele. There is a constant build that never crests, a simple singalong chorus, less-complicated-than-they-appear vocals, a broad theme that will be easily applied to a lover or a father or a son or the holy spirit. The only thing missing is human spirit, a spark that illuminates more than the formula.
[6]
Alfred Soto: I’m a sucker for steady beats anchoring piano lines, and they both make for ideal aural correlatives to Sandé’s assertions of independence. This builds and swells at the right moment too. If I sound tepid, blame the singer and her writers for constructing a conceit instead of a full performance; the song exists for the chorus payoff.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: Beatific house diva dips closer to earth, catches some of Adele’s working-class stomp. Like most British approximations of soul these days, there’s no blues, no vamp to it: it’s all streamlined build-and-release. Which is its own pleasure; but I like it better when she ascends into the stratosphere.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: Not everything has to be big, and certainly not the way “Heaven” was big, but “Next to Me” promises hugeness and wimps out. It’s still fond and sweet but in how the chorus seems to be a formality that happens when you run out of words to say in the verses, it’s no more complex as a song than Cover Drive from yesterday. It’s great you’ve found a top bloke, Emeli, but your happiness isn’t making me happy, uplifted and swooning. Maybe learn how to communicate your man-tentment a bit better, listen to some Nicki Minaj or something?
[6]
Anthony Easton: I think it’s on public record that I am a sucker for songs where Him and him are interchangeable. This is just a lovely, and slightly meloncholic desire to know the divine, and to place the divine as a comfort. This hits too many of my buttons to be fully impartial, and the windchimes just send me over the edge.
[9]