Believe it or not, this is Young Jason’s first appearance before the court…
[Video][Website]
[3.33]
Alfred Soto: Easy to condescend to, difficult to completely trash, impossible to like, Mraz declares war on cynicism, one strum at a time.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Turns out, if you break Jason Mraz down to his component parts, you’ll get a pile of fedoras, rancid rap and swatches of pink, and a puddle of pleasant guitar buttermilk. Everyone emulating the former should note how Jason’s now doing the opposite.
[5]
John Seroff: The thing you have to remember about Mr. A to Z is…um. Let me take a second to give his generically named new single a spin, and I’m sure it will come to me. Okay, so there’s not much of note in this semi-folksy, not-quite-explicitly Christian recitation. Mraz’s voice is Mouseketeer Club squeaky-clean. The composition is inelaborate and boring… oh right, that’s what you have to remember!
[3]
Brad Shoup: Until the astounding exercise in verbose voidhanging that is the bridge, “I Won’t Give Up” sounds just like a evangelical Christian praise song: a waltzlike lilt, the unrefined sugar of a melody, transport without transcendence, the acoustic presentation. I’d much rather him try to ply his self-vaunted wordplay toward the illumination of Christ, that’s for damn sure.
[3]
Alex Ostroff: Mraz does a waltz-time ballad with the least necessary choral part ever. If his voice were a bit deeper, twangier and more well-supported, it would be the perfect amount of corny for it to be an enjoyable country tune. If.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: Years ago, I forced myself through Mraz’s first album and found, amidst all the upbeat, chirpy songs that were vomit-inducing, he actually wasn’t too bad at the sad, pensive ones, some of which were as good as John Mayer’s best (up to you if that’s a backhanded compliment.) “I Won’t Give Up” starts promisingly like some of those, but it is relentlessly effective to an extent that suggests not a gently reassuring affirmation, but rather a lobotomy.
[5]
Iain Mew: There’s something to be said for going against the narrative that relationships are meant to be something where everything just automatically works and are otherwise not worth persevering with. If your relationship is as much boring hard work as this song, though, it probably is time to give up.
[3]
Isabel Cole: Please give up, Jason Mraz. Please.
[1]
Jer Fairall: I feel compelled to offer him a modicum of encouragement for singing with a straight face rather than giving us more of his usual near-novelty cutesiness, and for doing a bit more with his guitar here than simply repeating that same half-assed plinky-plonky rhythm over and over again. This is still embarrassing, though, his sincerity incapable of being anything other than painfully so and his idea of expanding his melodic sense going no further than cribbing from David Gray’s still gorgeous “This Year’s Love.” Cap it all off with the most anemic-sounding choir ever committed to tape, and it all equals much less a step forward than a moderately less obnoxious step sideways.
[3]
Josh Langhoff: “From This Moment On” < “Dream a Little Dream of Me” < “I Do (Cherish You)” < “Arms of a Woman” < THIS SONG < “Come What May” < “It Had to Be You” < “Could I Have This Dance” < “At Last” (godspeed, Ms. James) < “Lost In This Moment” < “Follow You Follow Me” < “Crazy For You” < “That’s How Strong My Love Is” < “Cheek to Cheek” < “Anyone At All” (Carole King -- that was ours).
[3]
Michaela Drapes: This is going to be unavoidable for the next six to nine months, isn’t it?
[1]
Anthony Easton: I am sure that people — millions of people, it seems — genuinely find Mraz comforting, but I can never quite figure out why. It might be that I really don’t do uplifting, or at least don’t do this kind of uplifting, but it seems too easy to just give this a [5], call it wet or soppy, or dismiss it with a quick bon mot. It would be interesting to sit down with a Mraz fan and ask what is going on, what is occuring in this text that is relevant to them. Anyone know any Mraz fans?
[5]