In lieu of these people ever being photographed together, here’s what you get…
[Video]
[5.00]
Jer Fairall: I’ve been something of a cheerleader for the warm, burbly synth-pop of Valerie Poxleitner since her debut EP in 2008, but this advance single from her upcoming second full-length is an ungodly mess, Holy Fuck’s farty dubstep and Shad’s perfunctory guest rap sitting so uncomfortably alongside Lights’ warm, billowy chirp of a voice that the whole thing gives the impression of people who have no idea what they’re doing in the same room together.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: It’s a pisser of a time for the music industry. First the London warehouse fire, then whatever warehouse was holding Lights’ masters got flooded, judging by the sound of this teaser single.
[5]
Anthony Easton: The blackened crunch underneath the glitter is almost as interesting as Shad’s voice is more than a little dull. Works out to an almost perfect [5].
[5]
Michaela Drapes: What’s worse: the squeezed-through-tinny-speakers production from Holy Fuck, the limp airy-fairy vocals from Lights, or the bolted-on inconsequential verse from a guy named after a fish? I can’t decide. It’s all terrible.
[0]
Ian Mathers: Circa the awful “Saviour,” I described Lights as “one step up from Owl City,” but thankfully that seems to have been a one-off, certainly in terms of the autotune miscalculation. Roping in Holy Fuck might have seemed questionable, but they’re a surprisingly good fit. And with the autotune dialed down, the smoothness of Lights’ voice goes nicely with the fuzzy digital backing. The lyrics, Shad’s surprisingly good verse aside, are still a bit dubious; a line like “we all pretend to keep our tongue out of our cheek” is not only clunky but clearly reaching to be clever. I’m still not sure what the title means, but the way she sings it, it feels like it means something, and that’s a step up.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: Are we still calling Lights the female Owl City? She’s built up enough vocal and sonic grit that the comparison should be flipped. Normally I despise messages like this (everybody breaks a glass, but not everybody gets the repercussions; those who do aren’t generally the ones who say things like “we all pretend to keep our tongue out of our cheek”), but I can’t despise vocals this pretty or a sound this gravelly.
[6]
Brad Shoup: On the surface, a nice I’m-OK-you’re-OK message, but it’s hard not to read this as a rumination on the sophomore slump. Holy Fuck provides the blown speakers, and Shad the personality-free yet exemplary wordplay. The synths fight to be distinguishable from the noiseblock, and there’s some too-brief guitar before the rap that I would’ve loved more of. The song’s on the right side of image-consciousness, but that 8-bit beat is all spud and no thud.
[5]
Zach Lyon: Lights and Holy Fuck and Shad aren’t anything beyond mediocre, but here at least, they sound like they were made for each other. And I have enough good will built up towards the latter because of this song that I was probably more open to the possibility that this song is a gem. He always sounds like he’s phoning it in, so it’s not so bad in “Everybody Breaks a Glass.” The moments after his verse, where she squeaks “Somewhere perfection lies/but not for you and I” is a high climax, despite its triteness. This sounds like Holy Fuck ft. Lights, not the other way around, and her voice sounds a lot better when it’s not being forced to the front.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: Verse-chorus-verse-chorus-rap break-chorus. Just because Rebecca Black used it doesn’t mean it’s a played-out format. In fact, “Friday’s” strengths are mostly structural, as are the strengths of this.
[8]