Of all the people in the world, why should we love you?
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[7.22]
Sabina Tang: If I weren’t blurbing this track, I would start a pool on the aggregate number of times Niki (or is it The Dove?) gets favourably compared to Prince. Plus that pretty Florence + The Bats For MGMT instrumental bridge, two minutes into a three-minute track, just to remind everyone it’s 2012. Don’t think I’m complaining that a lovely pop song happens to be easily contextualized, by the way — I could come up with a slew more comparisons for the “drum machine” version, to which I’d give an extra point, shocking absolutely no one.
[8]
Iain Mew: One of my what ifs of 2012 — what if I had already been listening to most of the tracks on iamamiwhoami’s Kin for a couple of years and had come to Niki & the Dove’s Instinct completely cold, rather than the opposite? In that hypothetical, would there be a similar reversal in my appreciation such that it would be Instinct that I would love as one whole and Kin which would be a disjointed disappointment? No way of knowing for sure, but “Somebody” sounds quite strained and uncomfortable even outside of the album context, its vocal and rhythmic complexities piled up on a song which can’t quite stand up to the weight.
[4]
Brad Shoup: When she makes the invitation, the sidewalk becomes a touchpad, triggering synth floods and bgv ecstasy. Her enunciation swallows words whole: the lyric site I’m using says “do you wanna come,” but I’m hearing “do you wanna — um,” the perfect cap for a year of maybe-calling. Sterling R&B production with an au courant vocal sensibility.
[9]
Ian Mathers: Look, if they keep making songs that sound this huge and triumphant regardless of subject matter, I’ll keep loving them. (This doesn’t sound as easy to run to as “The Drummer,” though, so it’s not quite as good.)
[7]
Alfred Soto: “Idiosyncratic” as all hell — Terry Bozzio never gurgled with so much strangled lust over these electrobeats. Why couldn’t Kate Bush have tried it on The Red Shoes?
[6]
Anthony Easton: Her voice is passable, but the production interferes with any enjoyment and doesn’t ramp anything out to make it really interesting.
[4]
Will Adams: There’s no other way to express the anxiety of asking about your crush whether his or her plans tonight involve you than with vocals as gulped as Malin’s. Even better, the music’s perfectly synchronized to the narrative. Subtle for the verses’ metaphorical musings, explosive for the chorus’ unabashed directness, it’s a buzzing neon sign standing behind Malin as she presents her case. But the answer is left to the crush, making the abrupt ending as thrilling, yet agonizing, as a proper cliffhanger should be.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: An exuberant love song for that point where a pathetic crush becomes the pathetic fallacy, where you’re skipping down whichever street fully convinced the trees and air are also besotten and working for you, like they’ve made a deal with God. (Yes, I went there again, but “baby, all the things that we could do” is her phrasing through and through, and this is very Kate Bush-Prince “Why Should I Love You,” no?) Malin tries to get seductive on “are you coming out tonight,” or cool with the cut-up vocals, but that’s a put-on and the track knows it. Within seconds everything bubbles over again, because playing hard to get is so hard, and denies yourself so much joy.
[9]
Zach Lyon: Niki & The Dove’s underheralded debut album spends eleven songs teasing at pure 80s radio pop, and then there’s “Somebody.” As an unabashed crush song, what choice is there but to take the “art-” prefix out and go full Cyndi? There’s no grace in crushes and certainly no time for her birds-in-the-trees metaphors; the moments in “Somebody” are embarrassing, awkward, barfy monsters of excitement. She sings the jumble of words leading into the chorus like a gospel, and when it finally drops, it DROPS — the getting-it-out, the confession, the embarrassment — and it does so through a gorgeous coalescence of sound and melody, all flight, all overflowing cups (no metaphors). It’s strange, no matter how many times I heard “Call Me Maybe” this year, I still ended up hearing “Somebody” more. But Jepsen didn’t have a moment as high as “SO DO YOU WANNA — UM — WANNA FIND OUT??”, so.
[10]