5 Seconds of Summer – Want You Back
n.b. No one here sounds like a helicopter…
[Video]
[4.67]
Katherine St Asaph: Peppy, falsettoed, and unpissedly heartbroken: a leap back in maturity and edge to standard boyband fare, call it the Failson 5. It is the year of our lord 2018, and I am mourning the comparative artistic integrity and rock cred of “She’s Kinda Hot.”
[3]
Scott Mildenhall: Like The Lion King II or the last Labour leadership election, it’s very easy to forget that 5 Seconds of Summer’s second album even happened. This is a great opportunity, then, to pretend that it didn’t — “Want You Back” is a far worthier successor to their initial glories than “She’s Kinda Hot.” Those glories may never be matched, but this does at least recapture the punchiness and melodic focus, all without being quite so nakedly plunderous as Maroon 5.
[7]
Iain Mew: Wanting you back (for good) has a positive track record for boybands going Serious, and there’s an echo of pop nous in the falsetto chorus. It’s just a pity that their positioning in this case also means that the rest of the record sounds so muddy and indistinct.
[5]
Tim de Reuse: A lovely, well-balanced chorus that keeps getting interrupted for an irrelevant verse or bridge as soon as it finds its stride: might’ve worked better with a little more “Get Lucky” and a little less Carly Rae Jepsen.
[6]
Ryo Miyauchi: Not enough days have yet passed since the release of HAIM’s Something to Tell You for bands to use “want you back” as their single. Only their snappy drums and disco guitars connect 5SOS to the sisters’ band; they’re more like Walk the Moon here. Nevertheless, same platitudes get sung from way different perspectives: while Danielle Haim did all that she could to do better than her old self, 5SOS doesn’t look like they gave much thought to how they may have contributed to the unfortunate split.
[5]
Alfred Soto: It’s a venal sin to use a band that writes the lyric, “I don’t trust my brain” against them, but I didn’t want to build a case against 5 Seconds based on their obsession with freckles on the back. These are dudes who’ve watched The 1975 top the American chart with INXS licks and polysyllabic caddishness, right? 5 Seconds are basic dudes.
[2]
imagine if this was a cover of mick fleetwood’s zoo instead.