In case you’re wondering, no, she doesn’t know how to ride this motorcycle…
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[5.78]
Katherine St Asaph: The aural equivalent of roll-on body glitter, except that someone forgot to add adhesive to the mix so it just falls to the floor.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: Fifteen-year-old Bieber associate sings a song just as anonymous and sugar-rush as his; her voice isn’t as wunderkinder, but she’ll have more options as she ages into it.
[7]
Alex Macpherson: Third-tier pop stars like Jarrell are a great litmus test of pop music’s quality at any given time, as they’ll usually wind up with whatever generic track they can grab off the conveyor belt leading from the production trends du jour to your ears. Five or 10 years ago Jarrell, who has a likable and pretty voice and presence, would have ended up with a delicious summer jam: maybe over a dancehall riddim, maybe a bit crunk, maybe something off the Neptunes’ cutting-room floor that still had enough quality to be acceptable. This inanely grinning number, its fizzy drink perkiness severely at odds with the weariness of its sounds, serves only to illustrate once more how much pop sucks in 2010.
[3]
Erick Bieritz: Not nearly enough pop songs take advantage of the trick at the 45 second mark in “Up & Running” – just when the song seems to have established itself at a medium tempo and the listener is about to lose interest, it doubles in speed. The beat drops out a few times afterward, accentuating the punchiness that wasn’t at all apparent in the track’s beginning. Yes, Jarrell’s exclamations and interjections are overly indebted to Rihanna, and there’s some dissonance in hearing someone who’s not old enough to date sing love songs, but that’s not new to teenpop by any means. Ultimately her performance does justice to this wonderfully clever backing track.
[9]
Maura Johnston: This song excites me every time I put it on, because the guitar chord looped behind the verses makes it sound like the whole thing is on the verge of breaking into “Ray Of Light.” If only the cut-off-at-the-knees chorus were as transcendent as that song’s most mundane moments.
[5]
David Raposa: The drum machine can’t seem to stick to one beat (or at least know when it should shift gears), and the tune can’t figure out what Veronicas song it wants to make me think it’s biting (tho the verses are reminiscent enough of “Revenge Is Sweeter…” to give me vapors). This leaves poor JJ and her twig-thin pipes to try and steer this mishmashed runaway what-the-fuck like she’s Sandra Bullock in Speed, except she can’t even reach the pedals. This is why you practice in an empty parking lot first.
[5]
Martin Skidmore: I like the enthusiasm of the backing music, and she is bright and bouncy. It may be a little too busy, and the song runs along without quite having a big enough chorus, but I enjoyed it a lot.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Its title is pure truth-in-advertising: the Auto-tuned vocal, bridge, and chorus arrive on schedule, like a computer you’ve turned on and left so that it could log on to Firefox on its own. Bits of youthful awkwardness poke through though, like Jennifer Paige or early Mariah Carey.
[4]
Iain Mew: Lags in places and is not as much mad fun as “Armageddon”. Plus “Don’t play me like a toy” is not a line which stands up to any scrutiny, grammatical or otherwise. The little darting strings deep in the background and the chorus harmonies making big daring jumps across the gaps in the music, however, could make up for much, much worse.
[7]