Back with the band and better for it, we suppose…
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[6.33]
Anthony Easton: Beth Ditto’s vocals are impressive. The rest of the band is Diet Coke disco for fashion parties. This track is no exception.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: It could use a middle eight, perhaps, but the addition of mid-80s disco swoon to their overly formal post-punk is exactly what has been needed for almost ten years. Beth Ditto’s voice only gains from being set against slightly softer tones; she’s always had power, but now she has vulnerability too.
[8]
Brad Shoup: On the chorus, Ditto’s voice becomes something of a magnetic gyro wheel, an astoundingly obnoxious effect. Granted, it makes the vocal edits less glaring, but it also foregrounds a song-length fault line: recklessly wielded vibrato. At the outset, Brace Paine lays down a line that chimes as if to note passing floors; rather than risk its becoming stale, the balance of the song is handed off to chord-change bass guitar.
[3]
Alfred Soto: The intro ripples all U2-like and Beth Ditto shouts over bass thrusts and keyboard hooks that make France Joli sound like Ethel Merman, but someone at the mixing board set the faders on “polite.” I’ve doubted this feminist avatar for a while. Having gulped without chewing two decades of female electropop she still comes off like an eager graduate student.
[6]
Michaela Drapes: The essential question: Is the Gossip still the Gossip with all the rough edges smoothed over, with crystal-clear production, and Beth Ditto’s vocals like a deep-toned bell? Sure, the disco octaves and high hats still clatter (just more politely) and we all have grown up, found clarity, and all that garbage. Still makes you want to dance, though — and isn’t that all that matters?
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: In a perfect world, the instrumentation wouldn’t be so smeared. That elevator ride of a hook would probably sound the same, though.
[7]