The Internet helpfully failed to provide us with a cheesy shot of Jessica posing with any kind of marsupial.
[Video][Website]
[3.82]
Edward Okulicz: Oh, the problems of being a competent pop star in a tiny market — the best you can hope for is the leftovers after your big American competitors have taken the pick of the material. Mauboy fills the song with some aerobics and genuine excitement but the song’s Karmin-standard if that.
[4]
Alfred Soto: As convincing as a student government president guaranteeing a club future funding.
[1]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Okay, I get it: weekend, strummy guitar, drink/sex innuendo-but-not-really, hackwork, fine, bye.
[1]
Katherine St Asaph: A One Direction rip, delivered with a dirty Snopes forward and an anonymous smile.
[3]
Crystal Leww: The song sounds almost exactly what you would expect a single for an ex-Idol contestant would sound like: a good vocal performance but just a year or two behind the curve in terms of production. The huge-elephant-in-the-room-difference (and maybe my head is just in the gutter or something) is that hook, which sounds like it’s very obviously a double entendre. Miraculously, Mauboy doesn’t sound like she’s in on the joke.
[5]
Brad Shoup: As a “Starships”/”Raise Your Glass” rewrite, it’s fantastic. Credit goes to Mario Marchetti (TURN OFF THE AUTOPLAY ON YOUR WEBSITE, DUDE), who’s transitioned (hilariously, lucratively) from East Bay hip-hop to powerhouse pop women. Mauboy’s the latest, a gamer who’s gone left-side with Snoop, Luda, Pitbull, Iyaz and Jay Sean. She’s not going to blow the roof of your track, but she can deploy some vibrato in her higher register, her melisma is functional, and she nails the lovestruck vibe the chorus requires. As usual, I’m mostly taken by the wordless “oh-oh-ohh-oh” part: the theme is internalized, the pleasure is in doing a tough thing well.
[8]
David Lee: This sounds tailored for a champagne advertising campaign but its glossy sheen is better suited for a whitening toothpaste commercial. And that’s precisely the problem. Scrubbed so clean, the implied filth rings hollow. It’s an eerily timed hologram of satiation.
[3]
Scott Mildenhall: The best thing about this song is that the threat of Jessie J in the opening few seconds does not materialise. Jessie J, no doubt, would have turned it down. At the very least it’s apt that a song so vapid declares its need for completion so forthrightly, but… no actually that’s it. Vapidity doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but “Pop A Bottle” really doesn’t help itself by being about as inspired as this very sentence.
[4]
Mallory O’Donnell: As far as music created for children that awkwardly compares the amounts of drinking and love, this one seems pretty average.
[3]
Anthony Easton: “Pop a Bottle of Your Love” is the name of my new dance night at one of the tawdrier Village dance clubs.
[6]
Will Adams: Starships were meant to… eh, who cares?
[4]