Well she still dresses like Adele a bit, no?
[Video][Website]
[6.80]
Andrew Ryce: If you pay attention to UK dance music, you’ll know Jessie Ware as the anonymously powerful soul singer on tracks by artists like Joker and SBTRKT, a sort of build-an-Adele for those who can’t afford anything else. But here she sounds hushed and sensual over a gorgeously sculpted beat, replete with liquid guitar lashings. Sexy and subdued, her voice smoulders with an intensity lacking from her bleating vocal turns on dubstep tracks. Not so much a dimestore Adele anymore; if “Running” recalls anything, it’s Sade, and that’s a much better look on Ware.
[8]
Brad Shoup: A tremendously-arranged slow burn of a song, like Donald Fagen ghostwriting for Anita Baker. I’m rating for the production, mostly: the impatient sighs of the kick drums, the tsk-ing of the hi-hats, the sinuous, sleazy twinned guitars. I could swear Ware’s being judged by her own track. There’s a lot of signifying going on in her lead vocals and responses, but the sonics have me pinned.
[8]
Sabina Tang: Jessie Ware gave a much-needed jolt of energy to Joker’s “The Vision” last year, and doesn’t disappoint here. “Running” borrows its snare-drum march and slow-burn guitar conceit from Sade, but where “Soldier of Love” remains stately throughout, Jessie restrains herself only to render the catharsis more explosive.
[8]
Anthony Easton: I am bad at expressing desire, or fondness for a musical track, when the lyrics are obvious — one of my favorite songs of all time is Arthur Russell’s “Tell Me”, and it’s just one line repeating over a bed of sound. I have never been good at expressing what happened with that bed of sounds (“I Feel Love” by Donna Summer is the same way); maybe it’s something about sexual ineffability. This obviously is not in the same league — less experimental, less interested in how sounds work — but I like it quite a bit, and can never quite figure out why.
[7]
John Seroff: A dubsteppy jaunt into Sade territory from a vocalist who sounded much better to me when Joker was producing, but then who doesn’t? This is too willowy and sleepy a throwback to get excited about; though the soft focus satisfies a very specific itch, it’s hardly one that was begging for a scratch.
[5]
Michaela Drapes: Jessie Ware, what exactly do you want to be? The first forty seconds of icy deep house were amazing (oh, that sequencer!), then it just turns into an unlistenable, uncoordinated mess. Lisa Stansfield? Sade? J.Lo? Christina Aguilera? And yes, yes, Adele, too — they all flit through at some point. Unfortunately, I don’t have a very good idea of what Jessie Ware actually sounds like. Parading around in other people’s clothes is never a good idea, honey.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: A tour through the ’90s, where the sequencer plays tour guide and yanks you away from one early smoky, compelling exhibit to a Martha Wash karaoke basin.
[7]
Jer Fairall: Feels more like a saunter.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: F-f-fuh-fuh-freestyle?
[9]
Alfred Soto: Remember how excited you got when you heard Madonna was going to work with Massive Attack? Me neither. Imagine “I’ll Remember” produced by that combo. Besides the urgency of Ware’s breathy timbre and rat-tat percussion, there’s the best guitar solo I’ve heard in months. In the final third she’s ready to lose it all. A marvelous sleeper.
[8]