Above the trees, over the seas, averaging [3]s…
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[3.57]
John S. Quinn-Puerta: I had some affection for the simple guitar lick that pervades the track but the sheer amount of edifice built around Tones’ increasingly irritating vocals made me lose track of it halfway through.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: I understand the amount of hate Tones and I gets — people recoil at earnestness, and even harder at any female vocalist who dares to quirk — but I don’t like it and don’t agree. Fly me away to a less dismissive world, where Watson’s vocal crinkles are charming and enliven this otherwise fine inspiro-pop, which sounds better anyway in a year when “Firework” doesn’t play 50 times a day alongside it.
[5]
Rachel Saywitz: I would like to fly away from the moment I first heard this unoriginal, dull excuse for a motivational pop song.
[1]
Thomas Inskeep: Toni Watson basically got lucky and hit a stream of liquid gold — multiple generations beyond her won’t ever have to work — with the awful global smash “Dance Monkey.” Her voice is an average singing-competition-show one, over-emoting every word, and she uses it to top generic dance-pop tracks that aren’t much more than Casio keyboard presets. “Fly Away,” full of “inspirational” clichés and lyrical tropes, is even worse than you might expect. I resent that someone as aggressively bad as Watson is an international star, while so many better artists can’t get a break; this song is the cherry on that puke sundae.
[0]
Scott Mildenhall: “Dance Monkey” was still in the Australian top five when Tones and I released her lonely-at-the-top ballad “Can’t Be Happy All The Time”, so it’s good to hear her more sanguine daydreams now it’s only number 28. It’s good, too, to hear her temper her more elaborate instincts. Over-vocalising was never viable beyond that one time that will keep her in clover for a long time, and coherence for once cannot expose any clanging lyrics. Still wonky, but more direct, the edges seem sanded off. It would be interesting to know if she thinks that’s a good thing.
[6]
Samson Savill de Jong: Sometimes the weird chipmunk warble that Tones and I puts on her voice slips and you can hear that she could be a talented singer, but it returns within half a second and I’m back to wondering how I can justify this reminding me so much of Passenger.
[5]
Alfred Soto: The modestly creative arrangement — backup vocalists who gust like wind, say — matches the modestly quirky voice. Both mitigate this inspirational drivel.
[5]