“The Voice” one-ups the FOX/”Idol” single machine with… TashBed?
[Video][Website]
[2.71]
Jer Fairall: A surprisingly non-ostentatious voice for someone who won something called The Voice, more of a flavourless Bruno Mars than a Daughtry-style post-grunge belter or a country sap in the Scotty McCreery mode. But if this wispy nothing of a single is meant to do little more than showcase his meager vocal talents, why make his audition piece for the world beyond TV singing competitions do double duty as another step in 2011’s unfathomable campaign to make the always boring Natasha Bedingfield happen again?
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: I’d already dismissed Javier, who won The Voice on mellifluous maleisma but not much else. Surely the show, if they were serious about his career, would at least release a single before season two? Then, just in time, came this, a version of the All-American Rejects’ “Gives You Hell” with all the annoying parts cut out. If NBC, Javier and (past/current?) mentor Adam Levine were just hacking away, they’d write either another “Moves Like Jagger” or a Jason Derulo thing, not sunny pop-rock with a TashBed cameo. Points for — yes — balls.
[6]
Brad Shoup: I can’t believe they didn’t cast this slice of domesti-pop in a country mold. I mean, the track swings like Darius Rucker and features Natasha Bedingfield. That’s Nashville royalty right there.
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Jonathan Bogart: The video version is parenthetically titled “Walmart Soundcheck,” which I guess means it’s slightly more country and significantly less TashBeddy than the single. I tried to listen to both in the line of duty, but once was enough; bless the grandmothers of all ages and genders for whom it will form an acceptably sentimental backdrop to Christmas 2011, but outside of that narrowly imagined field, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a use for it.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Either the songwriters are confused about love and money or I am, but it’s the singers’ job to sort this muddle, not mine. What we’ve got here wouldn’t even qualify as AMC theatre pre-show muzak.
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Iain Mew: A verse about having no money but having love, a Tashbed verse about now having money and love, and a chorus about how their love means it won’t matter if they have no money again. It moves so fast, with such little dramatic tension, that the idea that they’re still hung up on those first verse days doesn’t seem credible.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: I am having Shawn Mullins flashbacks, and Jason Mraz panic attacks. The sturdy rock chorus showcases and exposes Colon’s voice — he’s competent enough to sing it, but boring enough that you don’t give a damn. Bedingfield sounds like she’s pining for Simple Plan, which, really, she probably was until the cheque cleared.
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