Big in New Zealand, not so much here…
[Video]
[3.83]
Ian Mathers: If there was something more interesting to their music that led Six60 to be huge in their native New Zealand, to the point of selling out a stadium local acts don’t even think about, it certainly got smoothed off on the way to trying their hand internationally (although sources suggest that was kind of always the deal). The most distinctive thing here is “I’ll never know what second place is,” and that sounds more like neurosis than anything else.
[1]
Alfred Soto: Tuneful vacuousness is as universal as Chobani yogurt.
[2]
Nortey Dowuona: A heaving, flat drum pattern swallows a slippery guitar line with a small, furry bass following. Lead singer Matiu’s soft, pliant wail skids above, never even trying to be part of it.
[5]
Michael Hong: On their own, the two separate ideas of the coffee-shop folk song sped up into something more animated and the festival-ready chorus are both interesting enough to carry a song. It’s when these atmospheres attempt to meld on the second chorus that the song gets a little bit lost, with a wishy-washy instrumental that renders the message of “The Greatest” slightly incoherent. But Six60 sells enough pep and passion in that sing-along hook and foot stomps that even for a few moments, “The Greatest” becomes convincing.
[6]
Oliver Maier: I’ve been saying for a while now that what music really needs is a song that combines the theatre-kid smugness of Panic! at the Disco with the blandness of Maroon 5 and the disorienting bombast of Imagine Dragons, only really slooooowwwwwww.
[3]
Scott Mildenhall: There is nothing wrong with this song. But far from making it the greatest, that just makes it extremely competent, and it sounds like that may have been Six60’s justifiable aim. The rhymes of the chorus are creditably innovative, but that’s about where the innovation ends (well, either there or the first Gnarls Barkley single). If “staggering soul with desolate delivery underlying an otherwise upbeat message” is the formula, though, it’s a good one.
[6]