From YouTube to tropical…
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[5.44]
Jonathan Bradley: Tropical house is by now the new-sound-of-twelve-months-ago, but Gabrielle Aplin’s airy phrasing makes it sound like she’s looking for new textures for adult-contemporary pop rather than trend-chasing. Her reserved vocal doesn’t fare as well on the hook, where a weak melody and syllables elongated until their features vanish chase out any feeling.
[6]
David Sheffieck: Honestly every time I think I’m done with the tropical house trend, some new song pulls me back in. This month it’s Aplin’s fault: this is too catchy to brush off, and too easygoing to hold a grudge against. If it’s a hit it’ll be the kind that you nod your head to while browsing a bookstore in 2018, then forget as soon as you hit the checkout line. And as trop house outcomes go, that’s probably the best case scenario.
[5]
Will Adams: Yes, there’s still a surplus of tr*p*c*l house, but “Miss You” demonstrates how it can be used to great effect. It reminds me of Goldroom’s yacht club spin on the genre: easygoing, inspired by emotion but never feeling the need to enlarge it to the most important thing in the universe. Aplin’s warm voice sells it, conveying the ache of missing someone as it slowly fades away.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: This is terribly rockist of me probably, but I’m tired of the market coercing into mediocre EDM what would, 20 years ago, have been acoustic ballads. Though I doubt there’s any treatment that could salvage lines like “oh God, I miss you too.”
[4]
Ryo Miyauchi: Her sigh of relief before the chorus hits a personal space. The overall flatness of Aplin’s voice and the breeziness of the beat may tell it differently, but all that self-convincing does get exhausting. And “oh, god, yes” is exactly how I’d start a response when another lonely voice admits it’s actually terrible to pretend like everything’s fine.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Vaporous “tropical” beat? Check. Lyrical tag? Check. Coloring within the lines? Check.
[2]
Mo Kim: The opening is promising, serving up crackling radio static and cracked music-box piano, but “Miss You” soon lapses into familiar tropical house conventions, mostly scrubbed too sterile to evoke any real feeling. The syncopated rhythms on “won’t lose you again” are the only thing that draw my attention, while the rest is pleasant but nothing I’d miss.
[5]
Elisabeth Sanders: There’s an honesty in the way this tumbles so easily from the not-even-really-trying faux-casual so what you been doing, you can say if you like but I don’t need to know straight to oh god I miss you too, it’s all I ever do — the kind of feeling that’s one drop away from a flood. L’appel du vide of sleeping with your ex. I usually wouldn’t say something so — I don’t know, mellow, for lack of a better word — is a Bop but there’s a steady, lovely insistence to this that I find weirdly undeniable. (Much like the feeling it’s about, probably.)
[9]
Hannah Jocelyn: I’ve been casually aware of Aplin since her YouTube days/my middle school days, where she was one of many young folksters that would upload earnest covers of songs from Mumford & Sons and other bands, hoping to be discovered. Once she started recording professionally, she wouldn’t find her footing until trading in dreamy folk for soulful, often surprisingly edgy rock on her sophomore record Light Up the Dark. “Sweet Nothing” has a seriously monster chorus, and “Light Up The Dark” kicks an amount of ass unheard of for someone who used to cover Coldplay in 144p. “Miss You” has none of that edge, though — reuniting with first album producer Mike Spencer, she regresses and settles for simplistic tropical house. It takes multiple listens, as well as a watch of the video, to show the individual merits of this song. The video gives clues to the wit in the lyrics, and reveals that the chorus might actually be a little more tongue-in-cheek than I previously thought. There are some other little quirks to be found, especially in the time signature jumps, even if those moments aren’t enough overall to make this better than her past work.
[6]