[Video][Website]
[7.57]

Iain Mew: The weighty chunks of synth bear a resemblance to Austra’s “Beat and the Pulse” and set “Cada Vez Mas Cerca” up like it’s going to be something similarly dark. In fact, the rest of the song skates over that darkness barely touching it, pirouetting and pausing occasionally to fire off some lasers and a fragment of “Radio Gaga.” Yeah, it’s silly, but why question moves that come off as joyfully as these?
[8]

Alfred Soto: The chilly sequencers melt the second Magdalena and a synthesizer squabble over which high notes they should harmonize with. Unlike many electronic anthems which emphasize the narrator’s physical and emotional distance, this one wants to wetly sing in your ear.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I’ve never met a “Fade to Grey” cousin I didn’t like, and Maria Magdalena sings this like she’s not sure if it’s symphonic disco or someone playing around with settings on a cheap electric piano. The mismatch works, though, with her voice high and ethereal and the bass earthy and warm.
[8]

Brad Shoup: There’s a carnivalesque melodic bent to the opening line, something Gwen Stefani might tend toward. MM is in the same range, but without the… let’s say individuation. There’s a max poignance beyond which repeating the title doesn’t add, but she’s going there anyway. It’s those chill synthsheets she hangs at the end that truly transport.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The intro, which is just nostalgic enough to remind one of the disco, and refute the cult of the new, transitions into a vocal that rides above it. It’s like a glittery dolphin on an ocean of molten cheddar. The use of disco lasers, perhaps the subtlest in history, suggests the dolphin is bringing sailors back to the land. 
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Even five years ago those percussive strikes would have dredged up the word “electroclash,” but if anything the newest Chilean indie-electro sensation is going back to mutant-disco roots, if not to the roots of all electronic pop; those high tones are unmistakably Summery.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: This is what I wish Kate Boy sounded like.
[8]

[Video][Website]
[5.88]

Alfred Soto: Alright already: Katy’s gonna show you she can sing a straightforward dance track with all the fixin’s. To make sure you’re not asleep, she goes apeshit over the outro.
[7]

Iain Mew: You have to say that Katy’s timing is fantastic. Releasing a song with the line “say I’m the special one” just as Mourinho speculation reaches fever pitch? Perfect. As for riding the house wave, since she seemed to be doing fine before that it might just mean more competition, but this single suggests she should still have the right blend of relateable and dazzling to stand out.
[7]

Brad Shoup: “Something about your style/The clothes you wear/You get it right”: these are the sorts of lines I could enjoy from a singer with bite, nonchalance, ego. Katy, to the extent I know her singles, has evinced none of these, so this becomes just more passable house filler.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: The stars seem to have aligned for Katy B. With the growing “dance music not made by David Guetta is back!” narrative in British pop there’s been no more fertile an environment for her to release music in a long, long time – RD must be kicking themselves. Given that, this is an interesting way to return. Lacking the warmth and yearning the lyrics demand – lyrics that include the lines “And I could stay like this for days; looking at your beautiful face,” which might have been deemed laughable in the hands of a lesser vocalist, or less respected artist — it’s understated to the point of album-trackness. In “Katy On A Mission” she had one hell of a debut single, and she could have chose to make a similarly entrancing entrance this time around, a declaration of her claim to the chart throne. But in the main, that’s not her style.
[6]

Will Adams: The chorus doesn’t do justice to the titular hook, the gummy bassline disrupting the glassy house that the verses present. Katy’s voice remains the star, cool in the lower register and cooler when belting. Sonically, “What Love Is Made Of” isn’t entirely necessary as long as the superior “Aaliyah” is around, but I can still be charitable to those chord stabs.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Fantastic sounds, great voice — it’s Katy B, what do you expect? — but the song’s dead inside, and the lifelessness is contagious. A vocal as powerful as the one on “Witches Brew” or as sweet as “Movement” or as determined as “Katy on a Mission” would have brought it back to life, but the chorus is all detached promises without payoff.
[5]

Crystal Xia: This doesn’t pop in the same way that “Broken Record” or “Aaliyah” do, and the transition from chorus back to verse is a little abrupt and awkward. Still, let’s be real: an okay Katy B track is still a good track. None of these features that Katy finds enthralling in her dude that she’s describing are new or original (his smile, eyes, style, mind), but Katy has a way of making everything sound fresh. You can catch me sidewalk dancing to this, mouthing along to the words on a beautiful spring day.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Two years ago it might have flown as a third or fourth single, but two years ago she didn’t have Jessie Ware nipping at her heels and remaking the case for velvet gloves over iron voices and careful production in dance music. Here’s hoping she has something either more thoughtful or more exciting up her sleeve.
[5]

[Video][Website]
[7.33]

Patrick St. Michel: Joseph Campbell’s monomyth pattern starts with a hero finding themselves in an ordinary place, before receiving the “call to adventure,” which will thrust them into alien worlds. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s earliest songs concerned themselves with childlike glee, bouncing around on a fuel made up of beauty products, sweets and single syllables. Yet on October 2012 single “Fashion Monster,” Kyary starts growing up, and becomes aware of how some people perceive her home, Harajuku, and the fashion coming from it. It’s self-awareness that signals growing up, and her next single served as an official coming-of-age celebration. Then she dove into her home nation’s past, which prepared her for her journey to an unknown land. It’s appropriate “Invader Invader” debuted live during her brief United States tour this Spring because it’s all about spreading the Kyary goodness around the globe. “Let’s conquer the world!” goes part of the chorus, and Kyary’s probably the only Japanese pop star going, give or take Perfume, who can actually do what no J-Pop act has done before — actually get decent attention outside of Asia. “Invader” features all the hallmarks of a great Kyary song — ear-worm chorus, bleepy touches, a bouncy tempo, a lighthearted feel. Yet “Invader” also finds her refusing to pander, avoiding the mistakes of Pink Lady and Hikaru Utada. And yeah, I see the brostep breakdown, but that’s part of the reason this gets bumped up one more point. The drop, along with the elementary-school-recorder-class vibe and Kyary’s presentation in general, is confrontational, “Invader” pushing everything that defines Kyary (pop, “kawaii”-ness, a touch of the grotesque manifest as wub-wub) to the front. People in Japan and abroad love her because of these things… but lots of people also hate her for these very same qualities. Here, she makes like the best and brushes those folks aside and just does Kyary. Hell of a start in the unknown.     
[10]

Alfred Soto: Wow — late nineties Stereolab played at 45 rpm. I’d tolerate the scrunches and whooshes and tricky rhythm changes if the vocals didn’t grate. Terrific guitar outro though.
[4]

Anthony Easton: The rough-textured (almost noise) brackish sounds that come around the two minute mark, distance the cute for cute sake vocals of the rest of the track, while the brief hint of sped-up bells around the end of the song rachet up to a level of almost uncomfortable parody. The distance from genre and the falling completely into genre, competing against each other, suggests a kind of arch formalism that has not quite decayed. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: Chiptune, brostep, maybe a little Marnie Stern: Yasutaka Nakata always seems to locate placidity in the funnest places. Here, he hacks out a chill space after awesomely annoying ringtone klaxons and brutalist guitar lines. “I guess I’m an invader,” grins Kyary, but with a track this teeming, she’s operating in stealth.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: YMO as seven year old girls married to dragons. Best part: with almost any rudimentary sound editing software you can edit out all the dubstep bits.
[7]

Iain Mew: I’ll start with the dubstep, because I sort of have to. First, it is a very Nakata bit of dubstep. It’s still pleasurably abrasive, but it’s also meticulous and controlled, just a few noises stabilised by a constant beat that carries on after. Secondly, the moment when the noise ends and is replaced by the cheeriest twinkle of piano is amazing, playing up the comic absurdity of a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu song with a dubstep section and then riding it out flawlessly. The preview of that moment after the first chorus works the same trick just as well on a smaller scale. Elsewhere is actually where the most chaos happens, from Kyary’s “whoa whoa whoa” stretching the tune to its limits to the broken merry-go-round synth sections, every bit a surprise and delight. In some ways it’s finally the song to match her visuals, and it’s probably her best single to date.
[9]

Will Adams: No surprise, Nakata is just as skilled at dubstep as he is at the dancepop that first caught my attention with Perfume. “Invader Invader” is cut from the same cloth as “Fashion Monster,” its uptempo bounce supporting a chorus that asks you to jump off your feet. The winning moment, however, is the second verse, when the harder half-time beats meet with beautiful piano arpeggios. Kyary continues to win me over with her maximalist pop.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Her sonic aesthetic finally catches up to the gonzo of her visual aesthetic. It’s fitting, in a way, that dubstep is what gets her there: the most vulgarly lead-footed sound in modern pop still retains its synapse-scrambling potentialities when juxtaposed against the clockwork sugar-rush of Kyary’s baseline sound. 
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: The sound of five toy motion detectors cheering each other on as they overclock.
[7]

[Video][Website]
[5.33]

Katherine St Asaph: “You know how some couples have get-out-of-jail-free cards where you’re OK to hypothetically hook up with whichever celebrity? Society should have that concept except for punching people in the face. And one of mine would be Ezra from Vampire Weekend.” — me, on Gchat, grousing about these fucks before hearing the album. Given this, the prospect of Ezra and co. invoking the Lumineers or Outkast (or DragonForce! …nah) for the wiseass portion of their twentysomething existential crisis was not particularly compelling. And lo and behold, Ezra and co. bellyaching about Babylon like they just heard a Snoop Lion song are not particularly compelling — but either the frustrating or relieving thing about Vampire Weekend is they’re one of those bands where the music really does outweigh the annoyance. Here, it’s done with some pretty traditional tools — obligatory choirs seldom sound so celestial.
[6]

Alfred Soto: It’s about the Lord God, apparently — Yahweh. I award Ezra Koenig no bonus points for lyrical ambition because we knew he was a smart fucker already, as at least nine other, better tracks on Modern Vampires of the City prove. Horrid chipmunk-processed title hook aside, the track sounds delicious: thick dub bass, synthesized textures that shift depending on Koenig’s register, Chris Tomson’s drums getting the right sound from his martial rhythms. But this ain’t no single.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: I was gonna say Paul Simon produced by the Buggles but Trevor Horn’s tools are more pro than these. Still, at least now they’re allowed to see other bands.
[4]

Anthony Easton: It feels weird to have white boy prepsters who had previously copied Byrne copying west Africa, into working some genuinely lyrical sophistication, using Rasta argot to braid the personal and political. It actually sounds curious and beautiful  and weirdly evades the racism. 
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Another Vampire Weekend song that will keep the believers Tweeting praises and those who loathe these guys side-eyeing the others…while us in the middle sit here and wonder why these dudes can stop flexing those college degrees and just write more straight-up pop songs for a change. Oh, wait hold on, this song actually contains one of the most annoying sounds to ever appear in a Vampire Weekend song, those pitch-shifted coos. Cool, a Vampire Weekend song I can hate because it actually grates.
[2]

Brad Shoup: An apostrophe to the Almighty that isn’t XTC’s “Dear God”? I’m in. The Vamps try to stretch one (great) conceit past a dropout where the gutpunch goes, but they already did their damage. Koenig consoles an unknowable God; how’s that for the hook? Jehovah isn’t treated as such, not quite: he’s labelled a saint (quite the demotion), called out on his mistakes, tucked into bed by a parent who’s headed to the corner store for cigarettes. The refrain packs what I recognize as truth: He is and it is what they are. Marvel or move on. The rest is men notoriously grappling with themselves, mastering hooks and production touches (the stomp is a leaner “Take a Walk,” the choral bits are terrifically ambiguous, the baroque piano runs their fussy image up the flagpole) as rapidly as they discard the comforts of knowledge. To explain one line, RapGenius superuser Maureen Miller puts a Richard Hofstadter tome in the blender. Had Koenig & co. really exposed themselves to God’s back, she might have had to burn her place down.
[8]

Jer Fairall: Charges of glibness won’t fly here: Koenig’s vocal is graceful enough that even if you don’t choose to follow along with the ponderous spiritual ramble of the lyric, his delivery brings with it enough gravity that it all feels sincere (even the invocations of Desmond Dekker and the Stones, a religion I do understand, feel reverential rather than back-pattingly clever). Charges of obnoxiousness still might, though: as many lovely notes as this hits in its languid five-minute sprawl, the African choral chant chiefly among them, someone here still thought that including those horribly grating chipmunk vocals on the chorus was a good idea.
[6]

Ian Mathers: If anything, this makes “Step” sound even better; there is absolutely no reason this one needs to be five minutes long, and for maybe the first time there’s not even a single line I appreciated in any sense. There’s still some basic melodic nous here, but that’s not going to get me coming back.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: I fully admit to never having given these guys a chance. Maybe two, five, ten years from now I’ll be rooting through some old hard drive, come across an mp3, have tears spring to my eyes from the first notes, and become a belieVWer. But for now it’s still just another collection of signifiers — yelpy vocals, funkless rhythm, spindly instrumentation, fussily precious production details, vague religious allusions — without any attendant significance. 
[5]

[Video]
[5.00]

Josh Langhoff: Joe Diffie’s 1994 chart-toppers summed up their strain of the country zeitgeist pretty well: good natured blues-derived novelties with crossover line dance appeal, just like “I Like It, I Love It,” “Sold (The Grundy County Auction Incident),” Alan Jackson’s two steps, and everybody’s lordly ruler “Achy Breaky Heart.” In those years before Shania Twain swept in with her lasers, even the non-country kids (hi!) could differentiate these songs at school dances, though we usually admired the FFA kids’ choreography from the sidelines. Aldean and his songwriters take the short walk from “Pickup Man” and company to today’s glut of country chunk rockers, just one step further from the blues. Their novelty elements — Diffie shoutouts, a loony guitar outro, and rapping that’s slower than John Michael Montgomery’s auctioneer — fall safely within the tradition. The non-country kids’ll still call this country, though with its torpid beat, I can’t imagine the FFA kids’ moves will look as impressive. (On the other hand, those earlier songs also land in my 6-7 range, and unlike them, “1994″ reminds me of Prince’s 1995 banger “Now.” Come on come on, hicks on the floor.)
[6]

Alfred Soto: Taking the title literally, I anticipated drum loops out of Beck and Hole guitar riffs. But no. We get a little “3rd Rock” in our hip-hop and shimmers in our atmosphere. Aldean has neither honky tonk nor attitude.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Between this and “Boys ‘Round Here”, it seems hick-hop’s found its footing, striking the right balance between hip-hop and country signifying. (They both reference Cali Swag District, so we still have a ways to go.) But the most important thing is the track: Aldean deploys guitars masterfully, and the turnover of riffs ‘n’ whines is absurdly catchy. His voice is still thin as hell; he needs multiple tracks on the verses, and when they’re removed for the hook, he sounds like a twerp. Evoking a better time is a sucker’s move; paying tribute is nearly always awesome, and shooting shine to a mullet-sporting twanger from 20 years ago is so winning. And so is the line “hop in this truck… AKA time machine”.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Buzzfeed articles take more care in getting the past right.
[1]

Anthony Easton: Ten questions about this: 1) Why 1994? 2) Why Joe Diffie? 3) Grey Goose isn’t really honky-tonk, is it? 4) “Pick Up Man” comes from Muddy Waters, right? (I mean, it was Diffie, but can it be traced to that origin?) 5) Is teaching someone to Diffie like doing the dougie? 6) Can you get Goose in fifths? 7) What purpose does the coda serve? 8) Is “country” still a meaningful genre signifier? 9) Do the rock guitars of “Pick Up Man” mean something different than this? 10) What would Aldean trade his pickup truck for, if not a Coupe de Ville?
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Jason exclaims “atmosphere” like this is Bring It On and he’s the newest, burliest member of the Toros. Bring It On, of course, is partly about wanton appropriation, which is fitting; Aldean’s got his nostalgia going not only for Joe Diffie but hip-hop, or at least hip-hop as circumscribed by “Teach Me How to Dougie,” “Jump” (the “Joe! Joe! Joe!” part) and “The Real Slim Shady.” Country’s often gone here before, both historically and this goddamn year; if this is the best of the recent offerings, it’s because why Aldean may embarrass himself, he’s not drawing lines like Blake Shelton, nor does the embarrassment go much beyond “C-O-U-N-T-R-Y.” He’s also got a crunchier hook.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: I mean, Joe Diffie is no Springsteen.
[6]

[Video][Website]
[3.67]

Scott Mildenhall: Jason Derulo (in fact, did it not use to be Derülo?) belongs to the Taio Cruz and Pixie Lott school of pop. All are, both musically and as “personalities.” completely unspectacular but somehow manage to just about cling to relevance, even ambling into multiple number one singles as they go. What sets Derulo apart, however, is that his mediocrity, while consistent, is offset by a tendency towards the ludicrous, especially samples from sources as diverse as Imogen Heap, Irene Cara, Johann Pachelbel, Harry Belafonte, Robin S, a Bulgarian choir and Toto. Disappointingly, “The Other Side” is a Derulo song without a sample. It’s Dec without Ant, Paul without Barry; unwittingly daft (“eating off my spoon”?), but lacking real, out and out silliness. Perhaps with the surreptitious removal of his umlaut, he lost all of his power.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: He certainly sounds committed — did some executive pull him aside and tell him this is his last shot before being returned to wherever he came from? — but the circa-2010 production isn’t fresh enough to carry him along, not retro enough to be cool. So he’s left to fall back on his personality. Oops.
[4]

Will Adams: Jason Derulo feels like he’s living a teenage dream, though it’s not a dream that I’ve had or would like to have. Not with that howling, and definitely not with an ultimatum like “kiss me like it’s do or die.”
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: I know what will pump up Jason Derulo’s sagging career! A song about living for tonight, and about disturbing the peace, and treating everything like it’s “do or die.” Even better, make it sound like every dance-pop song of the last five years, and add nothing that could make this stand out from Chris Brown.
[1]

Alfred Soto: Vocals more indebted to Usher than ever but reluctant to change a second of his aerobicized Euroglide, Derulo sounds committed to a song he should have cheated on.
[3]

Jer Fairall: Falling in love with your best friend is a lyrical conceit that I’m particularly vulnerable to; why else would Alanis Morissette’s “Head Over Feet” have snuck onto so many of my high school-era mix tapes? Derulo rather sweetly captures some of the feeling of the anxiety that accompanies the possibility of crossing that line in the first couple of verses, but by the time he reaches his oversized chorus he’s reduced it all to so much generic sentiment. “Tonight, take me to the other side,” he commands, sounding far too confident for there to be all that much at stake here after all.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The hedonism here is so dull and hidebound that I cannot imagine what the other side might be. Is it the line between friends and lovers? Does Derulo realize that you cannot fuck your friends?
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: Just kiss her already. And think less about the friend zone. Or being Dr. Luke two years ago.
[4]

Brad Shoup: I listened to a couple things this weekend that “The Other Side” puts me in mind of. First is Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night,” which winds up in the same place — give me one night, we’ll be together — but gets there with worn-smooth metaphors and an existential intensity. It’s quite possible Benatar plans to get there with drink and sex, but the idea of passion is much more fun than the practice of it. “The Other Girl” is prosaically prescriptive, with Derulo referencing a fairly specific meet-cute and predicting specific reactions (and nonchalantly implying a bit of drunk driving). The other side is nothing more than a bedroom door. The second thing was a brief NPR feature on Genesis P-Orridge’s marriage to Lady Jaye Breyer. Genesis and Jaye famously used a shitload of Rick Rubin’s money to modify their bodies so they would look as alike as possible. They saw themselves as one person stuck in two sets of moveable parts. Taking an idea of monogamy — couples eventually look and act alike, or so the joke goes — to a logical, induced terminus, they gave us a radical challenge to identity, as well as a wonderful little love story. Their “other side” was a mystical, spiritual union that transcended bullshit like aging and distance and stomach cancer. Jason’s, again, is pop’s desperate invocation of desperation at best, straight fucking with baggage at worst. (And what kind of merging is possible when he closes the track by shouting himself out?) Pop can portray taking the leap as a matter of fact, or a situation of massive import. The thudding kick and gritting synths of “The Other Side” split the difference miserably. There are no archetypes, and there is no swoon. It’s a means to an end, when no end should have ever been implied.
[3]

[Video][Website]
[5.88]

Sonya Nicholson: I hope it’s really true that all the songs up for review today are good, and not that I’m hearing everything as much better than it actually is.  This sounds great on first listen, but thinking about it some more, I guess it’s got the trappings of high-concept without really being high-concept… I mean drawing a line between a sexy girl and a James Bond theme, or machine music and science fiction, not mention this 80s-by-way-of-Gaga sound, none of it’s exactly groundbreaking.  But man, Jolin Tsai really knows how to give herself over to the song in those choruses.  She really elevates the whole thing. 
[7]

Anthony Easton: Though she hints at the fast breathing and shallow effect of a certain kind of disposable pleasure seeking, it remains unconvincing, as doesthe tension between excellent technical skills and scaled up production. Extra point for the bouncy bits in the middle. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: Projecting and signifying over sequencers, Tsai is Kylie transformed into sonic affect, a blip of desire, a concept writ small.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Mandopop, Scandipop: the language could be the only giveaway these days (provided there’s no trace of hip-hop, that is). Co-written with a Finn and a Swede, this pulses like Robyn and EQs like an asshole. If you imagine hard, it could be a third-tier New Wave hit.
[5]

Iain Mew: “Beast” bears a minor resemblance to Girls Generation’s “Run Devil Run”, if the instrumentation was largely stripped back to an electro pulse and some spooky sound effects to better promote its devilish credentials. Tsai is certainly up for some patient menacing and carries it out just as well through distortion or otherwise, which is a good thing because the song has to get by more on mood than catchiness or dynamics. The wobbly alien jellyfish bit towards the end is a hell of a payoff, though.
[7]

Sabina Tang: I take it on article of faith (and Youtube subtitles) that Jolin performs in my mother tongue; I’ve never been able to understand a word she’s singing. Mind you, I’ve never discerned any personality in her voice either, so mushmouth is not the most salient issue. Props for the gothy electro, though; would be better with a real chorus, a singer capable of performing dynamic changes — and an ending. 
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Tsai’s voice, the blips and electric shocks stalk, and the chorus swoops, but the beast catches no prey. It finishes too neatly for that.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Dig the chorus, but the rest of this seems far from beastly.
[5]

[Video][Website]
[7.10]

Sabina Tang: Meanwhile, 2010s electro-pop’s hard edges have finally invaded J-Pop. I’m hard pressed to say why I find this development salutary — scratch the tune’s surface and one finds the same old “teen idol group singing in unison” style, which has never been my favourite J-Pop flavour. I’m taken by the lyrics, though, which are outright cognitive behavioural therapy from beginning to end; and delivered by the Musume-tachi with a jackhammer aggression that borders on fascist frisson. One pictures them irresistibly as propaganda idoru synthesized to keep up the populace’s morale, in one of those anime dystopias where Japan is called “Neo-Nippon” or “Area 11.”
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Brostep without bros, and exactly as promising as that sounds. I may be overrating this after Eurovision.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I don’t know how the Japanese done it, but armed with only dodgy presets you could find on the chepest keyboard in store, they’ve created something that is totally mental and hard as nails on the ears. I mean it’s not metal, but if someone hits you hard enough with heavy enough plastic, your skull will crack and it doesn’t matter at all how pink and shiny it is. Weirdly, the main moment of respite from the adrenaline rush is when they sing “Go! Go!.”
[9]

Sonya Nicholson: Exactly the kind of metal-gone-pop that must make Marty Friedman glad to be alive, and glad he left Megadeth for Japan.  Come to think of it, was he involved in this?  Well anyway: classical melodies, Japanese melodies, big-arena melodies, vocals bent into instrumentals (used as melodies), and a couple drops that keep the action going in places where there are no melodies.  Nice clean instrumentals that enhance without competing with the melodies. No dull moments, and excellent melodies. This song is perfect: the platonic ideal J-pop single. 
[10]

Scott Mildenhall: Determination comes across as, or at least induces, panic through all the staccato. It’s quite full-on, and that’s not even mentioning the intrusive, instinct-baiting guitars, or any other part of the altogether frenzied production. To use the benchmark of an uninitiated Brit, it certainly sounds more inspiring (and inspired) than Little Mix’s recent life-changing-in-name-only ballad.
[7]

Cecily Nowell-Smith: What with all the fussing and fighting around AKB48 and their innumerable spinoffs I’d quite forgotten Morning Musume, past masters of the revolving-cast idol group form. While I wasn’t paying attention they’ve gone and done not just the full Sugababes but the full Menudo: about half of the current members weren’t even born when the group started. Idol pop in MM’s mould has drifted away from cute-kid likeability to ultra-competent eagerness to please, yet they’ve managed to keep some vague flame burning for that early funny stuff, hints of the manic silliness of a “Koi no dance site.” The rapid-clipped race through platitudes of the let’s-do-our-best verses, the frankly weird structure that brings the song to a natural end only a third of the way through and then has to wake it up again, and best of all that scree of 90s eurobeat nonsense with which it crashes into life.
[6]

Will Adams: I suppose the only way to make heavy electro basslines more intense was to mess with the four-on-the-floor beat. It’s a good look for “Brainstorming,” which pounds enough to make its moments of rest feel like just that. There’s just enough to catch your breath, though even in those small windows you need a couple of listens to make sense of all the sound.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Japanese pop has gone a bit batty over brostep over the last few months. Ayumi Hamasaki commissioned producer Dubscribe to make a wub-tastic remix of one of her songs last year, while singer Koda Kumi scored a number-one song using music sounding vaguely like Skrillex. It’s only gotten more pronounced in 2013 – some artists just flirt with the style (Perfume, Berryz Koubou) while others have embraced it (Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Momoiro Clover Z). Long-standing idol outfit Morning Musume experienced chart success with an EDM-glazed song earlier this year called “Help Me!” which was a surprise for a group that had been seeing declining sales. So now they are milking that sound all they can, as on “Brainstorming.” What’s impressive about this dubstep incorporation is that Morning Musume aren’t changing their sound wholesale as much as they are smoothly integrating heavier electronics into their sound. This melody – especially the skippy chorus – could have been a hit for the 90′s incarnation of the group. But in 2013, it has been tricked out with whirring robotic touches that make it more “hip” without being a drastic departure for J-Pop fans (while also presenting a different strand of EDM to Western ears). This is how to capitalize on popular music trends without sounding obvious. 
[7]

Iain Mew: Yes, there is still an opportunity for success for Japanese idol groups who are not AKB, NMB or HKT48 or some variation thereof! Praise be. That they are doing a hard popping song with enough hooks and vitality not to get overwhelmed by the plastic dubstep let loose on it is an added bonus.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Quite a lot to chew on, from the French house touches to the load-bearing bass. Today’s eleven work a crazy urgent cadence and are spared too much vocal editing. Maybe a little baroque for my taste, but there’s more than enough bits to distract me when I start to get cranky.
[7]

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[7.33]

Iain Mew: Starting from the sirens, siren-like synths and barking dog (which may represent sincerity, if the subs I’m looking at are to be believed), “What’s Your Name?” is like 4Minute staging a love life intervention in the form of an interrogation. They do so armed with an array of production tricks and the vocal cool and toughness needed to back up the idea; I definitely wouldn’t want to be the one resisting.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Thought 4Minute were just going to dig into Hyuna’s leftover “Ice Cream,” but turns out they just needed it to build a tasty dessert. The production pops and burbles, like Brave Brothers envisioned a field of 8-bit bubbles for the group to poke while writing this. It can get a little too busy at times, but overall is a nice comedown from the tough-to-top “Volume Up.”
[8]

Brad Shoup: I’m not sure what the going rate is for a gorgeous 8-bit arc and an existentially pretty chorus that just keeps pushing upward. They just had to’ve left more cohesive parts on the desktop, I’m sure of it. Ecstasy is sacrificed to constrast.
[6]

Sonya Nicholson: Disjointed and lightweight, but also summery and fun, with a breezy vibe that works better as the weather gets warmer. Why is it that the two currently-promoted Kpop songs I like most right now (T-ara N4 “Countryside Life” is the other one) are exactly the two with the thinnest vocals? MYSTERY. And speaking of mysteries: This is the #1 song on Melon and has been for three weeks, which is a long time for an idol group song. But it’s #1 *only* on Melon, and not on any of South Korea’s competing music charts, fueling speculation that producer Brave Brothers is (once again) buying his way to the top. But no matter. Dude writes probably a hundred songs a year; I’m pretty sure he only backs the ones he believes in. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: Bubblelicious technology and bootylicious vocals are an insoluble combination, but when the track decelerates for a guitar-anchored bridge it braced me for a chain reaction it never hit. My favorite K-pop moment of the year though.
[6]

Cédric Le Merrer: Someday, Google or Facebook will invent a new prosthetic ear dedicated to telling me cool stuff about all the brands I like, while my real ears are bored by IRL conversations. And according to Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote, it will feel just as awesome as listening to all these blips & hooks.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: What the Pet Shop Boys single was for Moroder-adjacent disco, this is for radio-adjacent pop. It’s all in there: paramilitary drums, acid-bubble synths, Game Boy bloops, the piano in Disclosure’s house, handclaps, a guitar bit that reflects as much as it can amid the chaos. Songs like these defy any description other than just listing their component audio tracks; good songs like this make internal sense anyway. This does.
[7]

Sabina Tang: Conceptually a throwback to 4Minute’s early, pink-flaunting teen-brat incarnation, before the hard edges (visual and sonic) took hold — not to mention Hyuna’s sex-kitten apotheosis of ’11-’12. It’s got that drunken 8-bit electric slide, though, and snares in the right places, so I forgive it for not being a leap forward. 
[7]

Edward Okulicz: It’s all about the moment in the pre-chorus and in the outro where it sounds like a tape’s been dropped in water and played back. No, dropped in alcohol. It’d sound amateurish in isolation but everything in this is so expert, it wouldn’t shock me if Brave Brothers tried every melody and every preset to work out what made the girls sound the most tantalisingly taunting.
[8]