Australian lass proves somewhat divisive. There’s a first, eh…
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[4.20]
Keane Tzong: This song would have stayed an album track forever were it not soundtracking advertisements for some soap opera. “The Last Day on Earth” is too good for that undignified fate, a five-minute Tearjerker-with-a-capital-T aided along in its blatant emotional manipulation by an instrumental that plays to all of Miller-Heidke’s vocal tics. Few pop artists can sustain melodrama of this level for five minutes, much less elevate the material to the point that it’s actually compelling; even fewer pop artists would be headstrong enough to avoid releasing this as a single in favor of songs about shit dancing ability and childhood bullying. Impressive.
[9]
Martin Skidmore: Dignified piano and classically-trained singing, and I can hardly diss the tunemaking skills of someone given a songwriting award by such idols of mine as Jerry Lee Lewis, Tom Waits and Ray Davies. We’ve had a lot of acts who’d love to have been the new Kate Bush over the years, and I’m not convinced that this Kate is going to make it, but she strikes me as having a chance, which is rare. This is a bit too carefully classy and diffident to really grab me, but there are lots of strong moments.
[6]
Michaelangelo Matos: I should only hope my last day on earth goes on as long as this song does.
[5]
Spencer Ackerman: “Between the dust and debris/There’s a light surrounding you and me.” Your breakup is not a suicide bombing, lady.
[1]
Cecily Nowell-Smith: This is a song about a woman who has decided that an absent lover is as likely to come back to her as the world is to end, and that therefore one is a necessary condition for the other, and so she has filled her daydreams with apocalyptic scenarios. The sociopath-beneath-the-skin aspect is one of the things I like best about adult-contemporary pop, especially when it’s so cleverly disguised as musical wallpaper. Alas the disguise is just too clever– all tender coo and bland glurgey piano, ever so gentle and nigh-unlistenable.
[3]
Alex Macpherson: Dainty to the point of prissy, as pinched and bloodless as an empty-headed Stepford wife, Kate Miller-Heidke’s approach to her craft is infuriatingly devoid of merit. Tinkling the ivories like a minor Jane Austen character providing chamber muzak, Miller-Heidke sings like she’s decorating a cupcake: terrified of getting a hair out of place, too delicate to communicate any emotion deeper than a benign niceness. Poetry, beauty and insight are entirely absent from her lyrics, which are so uninteresting that they aren’t even clichés; her delivery of lines like “I love to lose my mind” and “I ache inside” is woefully and hilariously unconvincing. Seriously, though, what happened to the female singer-songwriter? What happened to women with creativity, cojones and chops who weren’t scared of putting everything out there, who used the form to express catharsis and grandeur? Did the trail blazed by the likes of PJ Harvey, Tori Amos and Courtney Love really lead us to the poverty of spirit demonstrated by this miserable Miller-Heidke creature?
[0]
Iain Mew: Could certainly do with ending at about the half way mark, but the beautiful dejection of the chorus is utterly irresistible. That is, I want to resist. The twist coming is sort of obvious and manipulative, that one-two of “you’ve come back to me” snuffed out by the second “in my dreams”. Doesn’t matter though. Handled just too well and the desolate verses have built up too much emotional momentum already by that point.
[7]
Chuck Eddy: Doesn’t she know it’s the end of the world? It ended when she lost his love. Oh wait, I guess she does. Also, she aches she aches she aches inside. Probably after hearing her own vibrato.
[2]
David Raposa: My threshhold for this sort of inoffensive wispy nonsense usually changes based on how shit my work day’s been, but while my day’s been free & easy, this consonant-dropping sack of mumble makes me wish I cared enough to actually get pissed off. As is, it’s taking all my strength to roll my eyes.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Very cute, especially the sparkles embellishing her voice and the way she sings, “You know me, I like to lose my mind,” but the song never really (ahem) soars.
[5]
Martin Kavka: KM-H is currently making the rounds of the intertubes with her song about being friended by an ex on Facebook. It shows that she doesn’t take especially well to being dumped, even years later. Who does? But to imagine, as this song does, that the apocalypse affords reconciliation with the person who dumped you — and to purchase a song premised on that image — is perhaps proof that one has been infected by a mental-wasting disease concocted by those mad scientists Søren Kierkegaard and Jerry Bruckheimer.
[4]
Anthony Easton: I used to really like Amanda Palmer, and then a few weeks ago, I listened to a few singles, and was just sort of annoyed, and was never quite sure why. Kate ended up on my Pazz/Jop last year, and the Facebook song might end up on the list this year, but I worry that it will end up being Ms Palmer all over again, which leads to the question of which Goth King she will sleep with.
[4]
Ian Mathers: The worst a song like this used to have to worry about would be getting co-opted into a horrific Sandra Bullock romantic comedy or something, but now that prime-time soap operas are grabbing up all the good songs about missing someone it’s hard to hear “The Last Day on Earth” without seeing images of photogenic professionals looking pensive about their love lives when it’s playing. But Miller-Heidke’s entry into the genre is unusually tuneful, restrained and interesting (honestly, at times she reminds me a bit of Kate Bush’s most mainstream efforts), and the result is something I honestly quite like, so I am doing my best to ignore the way that prospect makes me faintly queasy.
[8]
Anthony Miccio: A slow, pained cousin of Regina Spektor’s “Better” that even ends with “I ache, I ache, I ache”, in case her apocalyptic dreams aren’t obvious enough in their anguish. The way it maintains its glacial pace through a pseduo-rapping climax is kind of impressive, if you’re looking for a reason to play it all the way through.
[3]
Doug Robertson: Never before has the prospect of the blissful silence that the aftermath of Armageddon will bring seemed so desirable.
[3]