We’re tough because we love…
[Video][Website]
[5.88]
Alfred Soto: Alright already: Katy’s gonna show you she can sing a straightforward dance track with all the fixin’s. To make sure you’re not asleep, she goes apeshit over the outro.
[7]
Iain Mew: You have to say that Katy’s timing is fantastic. Releasing a song with the line “say I’m the special one” just as Mourinho speculation reaches fever pitch? Perfect. As for riding the house wave, since she seemed to be doing fine before that it might just mean more competition, but this single suggests she should still have the right blend of relateable and dazzling to stand out.
[7]
Brad Shoup: “Something about your style/The clothes you wear/You get it right”: these are the sorts of lines I could enjoy from a singer with bite, nonchalance, ego. Katy, to the extent I know her singles, has evinced none of these, so this becomes just more passable house filler.
[4]
Scott Mildenhall: The stars seem to have aligned for Katy B. With the growing “dance music not made by David Guetta is back!” narrative in British pop there’s been no more fertile an environment for her to release music in a long, long time – RD must be kicking themselves. Given that, this is an interesting way to return. Lacking the warmth and yearning the lyrics demand – lyrics that include the lines “And I could stay like this for days; looking at your beautiful face,” which might have been deemed laughable in the hands of a lesser vocalist, or less respected artist — it’s understated to the point of album-trackness. In “Katy On A Mission” she had one hell of a debut single, and she could have chose to make a similarly entrancing entrance this time around, a declaration of her claim to the chart throne. But in the main, that’s not her style.
[6]
Will Adams: The chorus doesn’t do justice to the titular hook, the gummy bassline disrupting the glassy house that the verses present. Katy’s voice remains the star, cool in the lower register and cooler when belting. Sonically, “What Love Is Made Of” isn’t entirely necessary as long as the superior “Aaliyah” is around, but I can still be charitable to those chord stabs.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Fantastic sounds, great voice — it’s Katy B, what do you expect? — but the song’s dead inside, and the lifelessness is contagious. A vocal as powerful as the one on “Witches Brew” or as sweet as “Movement” or as determined as “Katy on a Mission” would have brought it back to life, but the chorus is all detached promises without payoff.
[5]
Crystal Leww: This doesn’t pop in the same way that “Broken Record” or “Aaliyah” do, and the transition from chorus back to verse is a little abrupt and awkward. Still, let’s be real: an okay Katy B track is still a good track. None of these features that Katy finds enthralling in her dude that she’s describing are new or original (his smile, eyes, style, mind), but Katy has a way of making everything sound fresh. You can catch me sidewalk dancing to this, mouthing along to the words on a beautiful spring day.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: Two years ago it might have flown as a third or fourth single, but two years ago she didn’t have Jessie Ware nipping at her heels and remaking the case for velvet gloves over iron voices and careful production in dance music. Here’s hoping she has something either more thoughtful or more exciting up her sleeve.
[5]