She never promised she wasn’t going to write us an infidelity song…
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[4.80]
Thomas Inskeep: I’ve never liked a song by Sara Bareilles. Nor one by Jason Mraz. Not a one. Ever. Until now. And boy oh boy, do I like this one – love it, actually. A little backstory is in order: there was a cute little indie film in 2007 called Waitress, and it’s been turned into a musical, opening on Broadway this coming spring. Bareilles has written the music and lyrics for Waitress the musical, and hey, if Duncan Sheik, and Cyndi Lauper, can make similar Tony-winning leaps, why not her? In advance of the musical’s opening and a full cast album, Bareilles has recorded her own versions of 12 of her songs, and it’s the best idea she’s ever had. Her piano-led singer-songwriter aesthetic marries perfectly with the Broadway showtune form; within the constraints of the form, such as they are, Bareilles has come up with a splendid batch of songs, none of which I love as much as “Bad Idea.” It’s one of the pivotal songs in the musical, in which the waitress and her OB/GYN are debating the affair they want to have, and it’s lyrical in every sense, underpinned with a rolling piano figure, Mraz just shutting up and singing (sweetly!) in support (obviously he’s singing the OB/GYN role here). The star is Bareilles, however, writing not only a lovely melody but some tart lyrics (my favorite is when the waitress/mother-to-be sings “my dumb baby’s comin'”). “It was a pretty good bad idea, wasn’t it though?” they sing to each other, and like the best actors, they sell the hell out of it. “Bad Idea” is the most unexpected joy that pop music has revealed to me in 2015.
[10]
Anthony Easton: This is kind of fantastically funny, and though a pop song with that anxious bass, would be even better as a country song. Extra points for the gender reverseral, and further extra points for the clock.
[9]
Alfred Soto: A tasteless if delicious scenario (pregnant woman wanting to fuck her OB-GYN) anchors the musical Waitress, and as usual wrenching these tunes from their context makes as much sense as savoring an epigraph without the accompanying novel. Bareilles and Mraz harmonize through tricky rhythms but can’t sell the conceit by repeating the title hook. Where’s the rest?
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: It takes a lot of preciousness and generic sentiment for me to take against a song with this kind of rolling piano rhythm.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: I’ll never understand how Sara Bareilles manages to make the piano sound obnoxious in so many ways. To be fair, one of the main problems of piano-centric pop is the happy medium; enough overemphasis on the piano playing beneath the song and you’re not sure if the song itself is worth fuck all. In other cases, the piano is used as an obnoxious tool, and Bareilles loves to do the latter as proven by this obnoxious fake earworm. Mraz, the king of weird cornball caucasity scatting in his songs is already so far on my shitlist that incorporating him is not going to do me any favors, but to involve this cornball in a bunch of pointless stop-time skits that help overturn the song into pure musical theater territory helps grind my tooth enamel to fine dust. It’s not a single bad idea, it’s a fucking smorgasbord of them.
[1]
Jer Fairall: The skitter or piano and drums occasionally interrupted by the fuzzy crunch of a bass reminds me warmly of the lamentably forgotten 90s trio Suddenly, Tammy! and while I don’t generally find Bareilles to be anywhere near as engaging a vocalist as Beth Sorrentino, she commits to her performance here with an admirable enthusiasm unmatched by her wan duet partner. The lyric, though, treats its confession of infidelity with little more than a naughty wink, and feels both puddle-deep and powerfully dickish as a result.
[5]
Will Adams: Well, at least they’re honest; the Imogen Heap-esque breakdown two minutes in is the only good idea here. Having never seen the original film, I’m not sure what’s worse: whether this gleeful attitude toward infidelity existed in the original and was left unchanged by Bareilles, or whether she and Mraz themselves thought, “This is great and all, but what if it we made it super cloying?”
[2]
Edward Okulicz: As a song from a musical, I might go along with how smug this comes across and allow myself a giggle as I empathise with characters. The leads would have presumably won me over beforehand, but without having seen the movie or the stage version of the musical, I’m numb to the story, the characters and everything. Bareilles is aware of the preciousness of her craft but not how to make me tap my foot or give a crap.
[4]
Brad Shoup: It’s easier to invent the emotional landscape when the song’s not surrounded by a whole book. It’s screwball to the wall at first, but then the principals’ instincts (flintiness and empathy) kick in. The arrangement ends up having more fun than Sara and Jason’s characters.
[6]
Jessica Doyle: Okay, wait: if they’re both married to other people, and she’s pregnant, and he’s in potential violation of professional ethics, and the situation is “already pretty bad” — probably because either the Other Wife is shrewish or the Other Husband is villainous, or vice versa, assuming that we are actually supposed to be rooting for these characters and not just side-eyeing them — then why do they sound so pleased with themselves? Are they contemplating life-blowing-up adultery or running onto the field during the Alamo Bowl?
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