Dave Stewart’s merits as a producer. DISCUSS.
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[4.38]
Scott Mildenhall: It’s electro Joss Stone! The same Joss Stone who has worked numerous times with the producer of this song, some bloke called Dave. It also sounds like something from around the time she was at her height, released on an independent record label working beyond its means for top 37 success; essentially a lost Clea single, or demo, at least. When someone gets round to finishing it, it could be alright.
[5]
Alfred Soto: The daughter of one of most garish andreactionary producers of the last thirty years can belt, and when she’s multitracked against those electronic shimmers she’s arresting, almost a distraction from the underwritten stab at outré. Maybe another verse?
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Industry producers’ work with their daughters, like SPC ECO or that Tori Amos song with Natashya, are some of music’s greatest treasures. This is not a universally held opinion. The other day I made the mistake of injecting myself into Internet snarking (really, you could end the sentence there) over the existence, and lack of foresight not to do a Times interview, of The Prettiots, whose sins include ukeleles and industry parents. What they actually sound like is a blunter, less lo-fi that dog., another band with industry ties that, the last time I checked, critics liked. Kaya’s father is the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart. This reveals whatever you expected it to, but a revelation for the musically curious is that she’s given a backing reminiscent of teenpop Natasha Kmeto. Kaya, who is 15, gets something else really right: crush bliss makes for fun easy singles, but crush angst sticks around longer — “I’m in love with a boy, I’m in love with a boy but I’ll never say his name” is closer than to how it felt, and feels, and what I want to hear while so afflicted. More of that, less of the vocal wrrrrrrenching — I assume she’s emulating Annie Lennox, but she’s producing Paloma Faith.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Songs about unrequited infatuation are a tricky tightrope to walk, in the same way that being infatuated with someone is — it can tip into something creepy really quickly. God-level songs zero in on this disturbing illusion, while great ones are easy to identify with at the time but, with age, produce a shock of “holy fuck, I was weird.” “In Love With a Boy” flashes moments of something interesting (“he knows I’m better than good for him”) but mostly just reads like an explanation of the situation at hand. Stewart doesn’t even really sound that interested in this guy.
[5]
Brad Shoup: She’s coming in hot over a low-pressure front of an electro track. Stewart’s singing is so measured; I don’t know if I can chalk it up to inexperience, but it sure does hang lines like “my curvy ways” out to dry.
[2]
Will Adams: Considering the producer, there’s a surprising lack of polish. The canned beats, dry solo vocal line, the cheesy synth arpeggio: everything sounds underdeveloped. It was the near/here/disappear rhyme, though, that made me fall out of love.
[3]
Micha Cavaseno: You’re also in love with cliches from dubstep from about 5-6 years ago that dated this single the minute you fell out the gate. You ain’t in love with anybody if you’re pulling old toys out of the mothballs and Styrofoam peanuts in your closet and dusting them off like they’re brand new.
[2]
Iain Mew: This shares a musical palette with much of the Indiana album that’s my favourite of 2015 so far. It’s at its best when using a more extreme version of her trick: using a dark retro synth-pop instrumental to underpin a song that might intuitively go other routes. I love when the song gets flooded by synth bass before clearing out for Kaya Stewart to slip back to the title line, newly determined and ominous. Unsure of where to go after a couple of repetitions, though, she stuffs in more than the song needs or can take, destroying rather than climaxing the tension.
[5]