Paging those of us who keep track of low scores…
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[1.40]
Brad Shoup: Wait… you dislocated your jaw how?
[0]
Pete Baran: I know nothing about Hedley the band, but I’ll give them this, they are well named. Hedley reminds me of a small village accountant in the 1950’s, pocket watch at thirty five, just missed the war. Married, as happily as possible within the limitations of post-war Britain. Too young for rock’n’roll, spent much of the rest of his life being baffled by changes in youth culture. Which in many ways is exactly what this kind of sexless, deliberately sexless at that, Canadian boyband music aspires to be. I don’t believe for one second they understand there could even be a potential other meaning to “Kiss You Inside Out”, and if they were ever told they would, much like Hedley the accountant, tut ruefully and make excuses as he and the wife were having tea at the parsonage.
[3]
Anthony Easton: I don’t know what this means of me as a critic, but I’m a lot more generous when rock slides towards Nashville — if this was sung by a second-tier country singer, I would find it a lot more interesting than sung by a third-tier Can-rock band. I am also confused about why bands invented to fill the Beaver Hour are being exported (and charting?) in America. Is there a renewed interest in Trooper?
[3]
Will Adams: “I don’t know if you’re ready to go to where I’m willing to take you, girl”; “I will feel every inch of your skin”; “take off your clothes”; “give up the fight, I’m in control”; “I wanna know you inside out”; “just close your eyes and shut your mouth.” And that’s just the first minute. The one point is for making a sonic rehashing of “Payphone” the least of this thing’s worries.
[1]
Iain Mew: There could maybe be a song in which a guy sings to a girl lines including “I’ll be the shipwreck that takes you down”, “Give up the fight, I’m in control” and “Shut your mouth” that wasn’t gross, or a least was enjoyable. It definitely wouldn’t be one as sickly sweet sounding and lacking in self-awareness as this.
[1]
Patrick St. Michel: Somebody needs to take the singer aside and tell him that simply adding a dance-appropriate beat won’t turn his band into pop stars overnight. Then they need to convince him to not sound so creepy in his lyrics. Last, they should explain to him “shipwrecks” aren’t particularly romantic images and that he should pay closer attention when he watches Titanic next time.
[1]
Alfred Soto: “I don’t know if you’re ready to go to where I’m willing to take you, girl” he says, so let’s inspect the terrain: synth sparkles, programmed boogie an Owl City fan could wave an arm at, a sandpapered Rob Thomas strumming an acoustic guitar. Yet Luda provokes shouting matches on “The O’Reilly Factor.”
[0]
Alex Ostroff: On the Guetta Scale of Bosh, “Kiss You Inside Out” rates a 4 – not as obnoxiously thumpa thumpa as the worst excesses of the pop charts, but not sufficiently boshy to overcome the acoustic mewling at its heart. At 0.5, its Wentz Coefficient (Catchiness/Creepiness) is well below Fall Out Boy’s 2.0, and even falls beneath the even 1.0 of Marianas Trench. Through an equation far too complicated to explain in this space, its rating on the TSJ Grading Scale is an irrational number closest to the integer:
[2]
Jer Fairall: Breezy acoustic strumming, an unctuous near-lullaby of a melody, and the kind of skeezy soft nothings only a rapey douche-bag would think seductive: kids, meet your generation’s “Crash Into Me.”
[1]
Jonathan Bogart: I am so fucking sick of the way that guy sings, every vowel caught right on the edge of his throat. Bring back postpunk yowling, or hanging, whichever will get rid of it.
[2]