Australian Idol runner up meets ubiquitous NYC hit (or not)…
[Video][Website]
[5.43]
Alfred Soto: She must have put this over on The Voice a couple months ago — the audible grit against those arpeggios makes for the kind of show stopper that audiences love. Freed of context, “Fallin'” sounds generic.
[4]
Will Adams: I-i-i keep on fallin’… in and out… of love… with a song that builds to a huge release and then pulls everything back for a tepid ballad instead.
[5]
Hazel Robinson: Tell you what, if you have a slightly twitchy acoustic intro like you’re about to drop one of those restrained, vocal harmony sloppy love songs from midway through an *NSync album then you’ve got me onboard. Get it a bit bassy later and oh, I know this is a box of tricks that are designed to fuck with me but they’re all so pleasant and god knows we need a bit of bizarrely blunt niceness right now.
[8]
Ryo Miyauchi: Is her rhyme breakdowns during the pre-chorus borrowed from The-Dream? Was she thinking “Wildest Dreams” for her descending sighs? Though the vocal play adds a necessary detail to highlight an otherwise too-standard R&B ballad, I’m instead thinking what other songs these tricks are sourced from.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: Sometimes, a pleasantly pretty ballad is just a pleasantly pretty ballad.
[5]
Austin Brown: “I’ve been that girl who has to play it safe”–yeah, I can tell.
[5]
Nortey Dowuona: This feels both slight and low, as Jessica smoothly slides through the soft guitar and bouncy, yet slow 808 drums. Let down your windows and hair.
[6]