So it’s been in the news a bit…

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[4.94]

Andrew Brennan: Ryan Tedder — that bastard! And I thought he was originally going to give “Halo” to Leona Lewis. On my first listen I didn’t think “Already Gone” sounded that much like “Halo”. But after that I couldn’t stop expecting “I can see your halo halo halo” every time the chorus kicked in. Sigh. Otherwise I think it’s really good — nice main and backing vocals, lovely strings, great pickup at 3:40 — it’s certainly better than Ms. Clarkson’s other recent singles. Quit ruining everything, OneRepublic. Please?
[7]

John Seroff: For better or worse, this is not Clarkson’s song. It’s Beyonce’s song and I like it better when Beyonce sings it. Trading urgency for Sarah McLachlan-style bent notes and dulling the bass in favor of more insistent strings only increases my suspicion that “Gone”‘s natural habitat is playing over the “other symptoms may include” disclaimer in a Lunesta commercial. Heck, I like this better when Nick Pitera sings it. Probably best for Kelly to take a mulligan here and move on.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Despite the artiste’s complaints about producer-songwriter Ryan Tedder’s self-plagiarism, this improves on Beyoncé’s interminable “Halo.” Call me perverse, though: this track seems a better fit for Tedder’s vocal keening than Clarkson’s excellent pipes.
[5]

Alex Macpherson: That parts of “Already Gone” seem to be literally copy-and-posted from Beyoncé’s “Halo” is only the most obvious manifestation of songwriter Ryan Tedder’s hackwork. (Parts which, sadly, don’t include any hooks; for all its faults, at least “Halo” was memorable.) All his songs are as subtle as an undergraduate’s hurriedly plagiarised essay, and about as devoid of worth: all empty bluster and hollow bombast, even a performer as stellar as poor Kelly Clarkson is reduced to flailing around loudly and pointlessly. There seem to be some serious delusions of grandeur reflected in this music; let’s hope this débâcle kills them off for good.
[2]

Ian Mathers: I’ve been watching a lot of Six Feet Under recently, so I’m in the mood for a stirring ballad about how loving someone isn’t always enough for a relationship. Clarkson goes beyond “it’s not you, it’s me”, I think – she acknowledges both that she still cares for him and that he “couldn’t have loved me better” but that things just aren’t working. It’s the kind of great pop single that’s emotionally nuanced enough it’s probably doomed to be used as ‘generic breakup song’ by people who don’t notice or care that “Already Gone” is about something much more difficult and painful.
[8]

Keane Tzong: Kelly manages to elevate this into something more than the drab leftover its opening chords seem to promise it’ll be. She makes the absolute best of the situation, stamping the track as her own with a surprisingly delicate performance of a (slightly) more intriguing vocal melody, but it’s not quite enough to banish the specter of its older sisters completely.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: “I love you enough to let you go”: what-the-fuck-ever, Kelly. Sure, she makes “I want you to move on/So I’m already gone” sound genuinely empathetic. But this song-doctor special with its nylon-hazy production is one big wheeze.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: I always like her, never love her. I’ve always had trouble distinguishing her songs from each other, and lately I’ve been having trouble distinguishing her songs from Pink’s songs, too. Prefer “Since You Been Gone” by Head East or Rainbow; prefer “Already Gone” by the Eagles.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I like her better angry then resigned.
[3]

Doug Robertson: So, Kelly, I guess Shontelle’s been cropping up a lot on your iPod recently then? Or at least in marketing meetings about where to position you.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: She shows her range, and sings it with force and judgement, but it’s not the kind of thing I can get too enthusiastic about.
[6]

Hillary Brown: I’ve changed my score from 6 to 7 to 6 to 7, which probably means this is like a 6.5. Better than “better than average”, but not really hooky enough to hit 7, and if it came from anyone but Kelly Clarkson it’d probably only be a 6. Too long, too mopey, too much repeating of the same words, but nice strings and nice lingering over particular bits vocally.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: Kelly’s voice floats perfectly above it all, but the song sounds laboured. I would suggest that Kelly can’t pull off ballads as convincingly as vengeful rockers, but My December highlight “Sober” proves that she can ache with the best of them. In the end, Kelly feels less emotionally committed to the material on All I Ever Wanted, and while that works well on the tossed-off grunge and low-fi doo-wop dabblings she throws at us elsewhere on the album, “Already Gone” requires her grit and bile, both of which are sorely lacking.
[5]

Martin Kavka: My God, Ryan Tedder, what have you done to her? Kelly was a feisty woman with an expressive voice; she even owned her vulnerability in her best ballad (“Irvine”). Now she’s a wisp of a thing — her higher register really doesn’t suit her — and in dire need of therapy. You’ve cut her open, and she’s bleeding love, but this is too unseemly for lightning to strike twice. After hearing the far superior arrangement and vocal performance on Letterman’s show, I can’t wait for the fuck-off anthem she writes about Tedder after she’s been mercifully released from the claws of 19 Entertainment.
[4]

Anthony Miccio: I have a feeling Clarkson’s disappointment with this track being a single has more to do with having to bust out such a drab, repetitive ballad at her live shows than anything to do with Ryan Tedder or Beyonce. That shit’s just insult to injury.
[4]

Iain Mew: Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious, but it’s “A Somewhat Reduced Quantity of Air”, isn’t it?
[4]

Al Shipley: Shoulda let Jordin Sparks take this one.
[4]

No-one goes for the “remake of Get Carter, starring Shakin’ Stevens” joke. Pity…

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[5.40]

Hillary Brown: What? Is this about huffing? Whatever it is, it’s kind of sneaky and calculated, but it’s not all that bad, in spite of feeling like you’re being Duran Duranned.
[6]

Martin Kavka: Can anyone over the age of 12 imagine dancing to a song with the lyric “get shaky after school”? Two points solely for its video, which proves that the generation raised on “…Baby One More Time” is now grown up and directing music videos themselves. Between this and “Chip Diddy Chip,” one must wonder whether in a decade, schools will have actually become dance halls.
[2]

Michaelangelo Matos: Wouldn’t mind getting shaky to it on a dance floor, especially if a savvy remixer were to stretch the groove past itself. Approximate amount of time I’ll spend hoping for this to occur: none.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: This went platinum in Australia last year, but it does little for me. The female vocal is quite appealing on the quieter parts, but the electronica-house backing is medium-paced and lacks beauty or energy, so I’m mystified at why it has blown up so much anywhere.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: Apparently Carey’s a Maryland-bred “house” guy, but I would’ve been just as likely to guess that this was some sort of Winehouse/Yeah Yeah Yeahs (or Duffy/Kills?) hybrid making an electro move. Only hint otherwise, maybe, is that the electro breaks are the best part of the song.
[7]

John Seroff: This tawdry tale of tremulous after-hour study groups has a foundation to rock the house: sinewy, Joan Jett vocals; twitchy kickdrums; an ominous, three chord guitar theme; elastic synth bass that weaves and dopplers like a swaying palm tree and an opening service of handclaps and hi-hats copied verbatim from Daft Punk’s final exam. The problem is the ropes never quite turn fast enough to double dutch; “Get Shaky” is more restrained than joyous, more constructed than sculpted. If I’m really meant to go crazy and break the rules, as the lyrics and the BPM suggest, I’m going to need a track with a bit more abandon. A solid, underachieving C.
[5]

Alfred Soto: While the chorus consists of unsurprising exhortations of the Lady GaGa variety, the guitars and sequencers made my ears prick up. So did the vocalist, whose pinched high notes summon Terry Bozzio crossed with Roisin Murphy.
[6]

Anthony Miccio: There isn’t a “feat. female singler” here, so either Ian Carey has one peculiar voice or he realizes there’s no reason to highlight the shrill woman unconvincingly urging us to “go crazy” over his passable dance beats.
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: This is pure confectionery, but it mainly seems interested in riveting together an acid-electro cliche colussus for devotees of the Disney Channel. While the music is far too hackneyed to resonate, I can at least applaud them for out & out guile.
[7]

Ian Mathers: It’s not a problem to evoke or pay homage to other songs in your own efforts, but when every line of the chorus ends with a melody that reminds me of the chorus of “Maneater,” I’m going to want to listen to Hall & Oates instead of you.
[6]

Opinion up…

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[6.06]

Chuck Eddy: I may be way off on this, but I get the idea that the consensus feels her follow-up LP isn’t a letdown. If so, I disagree, though I doubt I can convincingly formulate why. My gut says it has to do with Lily succumbing to precocious-and-proud Nellie McKay cuteseiness. Which may have been there all along, and I just chose to ignore it. Or maybe it just means she’s less rhythmic now. Anyway, this song seems slight even compared to the album’s previous singles. And as somebody who’s lived in places where unmarried 30-year-old women are quite common “in this day and age” and hardly considered old maids, I also think it’s full of shit, and Lily being six clueless years shy of 30 herself may be a major factor. But there’s something affecting about it regardless. Whatever happened to a boyfriend, the kind of guy who makes love ’cause he’s in it?
[7]

Alex Macpherson: This ex-hater has been slowly coming round to Lily Allen lately, largely due to her toning down some of her Cockney street urchin bullshit and making one of the finest pop singles of 2009 in “The Fear”. She’s still hit-or-miss, and definitely not yet the wit and wordsmith that she wants to be – please, leave the use of the phrase “in this day and age” to the Daily Mail commentariat. But “22”s power isn’t in its social analysis; it’s in the clear-headed, empathetic way Allen vocalises what it feels like for a girl in 2009. The excellent video (love the sly presence of urinals in what’s meant to be a girls’ toilet) makes this explicit, but plenty of people will see themselves reflected in this song.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: I have a problem with negative songs about types – Lily says this started about a particular woman, which I believe, since many of her songs are clearly like that, but the song suggests a general statement about a class of women, who she clearly thinks deserve their failure and misery, since they are asking for it. I went off even great examples of that long ago – I love the Kinks, but can’t enjoy several of their hits now. The problem for me is when the sneering comes from this position of privilege and success and is aimed at ordinary people. I usually like Lily a lot, and musically this is as cute as usual, but the contempt here is very distasteful.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: Lyrically, does about as much for society’s treatment of women older than Lily as what “Fuck You” did for political discourse, but the triteness is easily ignored to hear it melodically for what it is: a slight but cheery enough ditty whose only crime is that it’s not as clever or original as it thinks it is. Agreeable, bouncy, forgettable, pleasant, functional.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Over that kind of droll music-hall instrumental the Beatles inexplicably decided was emblematic of everything great about being British, Allen tut-tuts about a poor miss whose life ain’t turning out right. Like an earnest undergraduate majoring in sociology, she concludes that the whole thing can be blamed on the nebulous bete noire “society,” for supposedly judging the lass as “finished.” Really, the only person saying any such thing is Allen herself. But while her vapidity is youthful, her social politics are conservative and reactionary; she scolds away about the misery of the single thirty-something like a graying Tory declaring that the problem with women in “this day and age” is that they won’t settle down with a good man already: aggresive sexism masquerading as feminism. There is genuine pathos in “She’s got an alright job, but it’s not a career/Whenever she thinks about it, it brings her to tears,” but Allen skips blithely past it on to her next piece of rhetorical weaponry; her characters are never allowed to experience emotions, because that would get in the way of their role as conduits of the oh-so-deep philosophies the singer is intent on explicating. The one point I’ve awarded is because this song, unlike “Alfie” and “Not Fair,” is airheaded rather than repulsive.
[1]

Mallory O’Donnell: She’s still not saying anything, but at least now she’s talking about something. Where Lily says “society” I would say “women’s media,” but it may just be that they’re one and the same, today. Meritorious.
[8]

Keane Tzong: The highest praise I have for “22” is that it’s sweet and lightweight, an absolute trifle of a song. That’s more positive than it might initially seem: in any other performer’s hands it’d be a shitty attempt at a Statement, didactic and leaden. Lily proves her mettle by treating the material just right, delivering potentially cringeworthy lyrics in a tone that smacks equally of self-deprecation and schadenfreude.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: Phrases like “It’s so unlikely in this day and age” don’t even make for entertaining bar talk, never mind bolstering A Statement; why not throw in a couple “And another thing”s for good measure? Yet I like the music enough to be generous; Lily’s tack piano sure beats the living crap out of Matt & Kim’s.
[6]

Martin Kavka: In the context of its album, “22” never stood out that much for me; it’s one of the better songs on the album, but overall it seemed Lily-Allen-y in its Lily-Allen-ness. As a single, it reveals itself as a powerful articulation of feminism, and one of the best indictments of men’s (and women’s internalized) sexism. Yet I’m not sure how much of the credit here should go to Allen herself — she’s always on the verge of being thrown under the bus by her own narcissist and rambling nature. I suspect most of it should go to Jake Scott for his video treatment, which neatly makes the point that women are still in the same social trap that they were in in the 1920s, and that this can only change if women stop persuading themselves that men are necessary for happiness. I can’t think of a video made this decade that has better served the song it’s marketing (although there have certainly been more artistically creative and even aesthetically pleasing videos); I certainly can no longer think of “22” as meh.
[9]

Anthony Easton: Lily Allen is one of the best creators of narratives in pop music today, clever and sad, ludicrous and sex drenched, ennui ridden, but humane. Without reservation, I have never heard anything uninteresting coming from her lips, and this makes me sound silly, but you know that feeling like you are 17, and listening to the Smiths, and feel like Morrissey is talking to you and only you about the travails of yr life — it is nice to have a Morrissey when you are 28, and have much less of an idea of what is going on then you did at 17.
[9]

John Seroff: Unfortunately, I can only imagine two possible, equally unpleasant interpretations of “22”. One reading has it as a bland, modern Eleanor Rigby… minus the poetry (“cause all she wants is a boyfriend/she gets one night stands/she’s thinking how did I get here/I’m doing all that I can” is sub-High School literary journal fare). The other, the one that the song’s somewhat vile video seems to reinforce, is that we’re meant to take Allen seriously as she laments the ruff and tuff lives of ennui-ridden First World twenty-something wage slaves; old maids before their times who just need t’ fahnd a MAHYUN. Facing an idiotic lady-or-the-tiger choice like this would merit little more than a shrug if it weren’t for the terrifyingly catchy music, an Alexandra’s Rag-Time Valium Band blend of Fosse-hands vaudevilliana, swingin’ pop and a whiff of dancehall. Tracks this hummable really have no business being pushed into the service of lyrics this empty headed. This sets up an interesting question, one that seems to dog Allen’s career thus far: is she much less clever that she ought to be or much more clever than she’s given credit for? If the former, how does she keep landing such meaty filets of soul? If the latter, why’s her work keep getting mired in such vapidity? What’s it all about, Lily?
[5]

Frank Kogan: Think the video serves the song especially well, the whole mass of women jostling through and preparing themselves at once, and while at least some of the women have at least some solidarity, helping each other vomit or walk, Lily’s there in the midst of them, completely isolated, struggling through or against the others while not able to feel the common predicament as a common predicament, despite the commonality that her song itself is pointing out.
[8]

Anthony Miccio: At first I wished Allen would suggest the young-old maid might find a reason to live outside of romantic companionship, but by not tacking sisterly advice to the portait, the bittersweet bounciness of the track is harder to write off. Now I just wish she wrote meatier descriptions than “I see that look on her face/ she’s got that look in her eye.”
[7]

Additional Scores

Hillary Brown: [6]
Iain Mew: [6]
Ian Mathers: [5]
Fergal O’Reilly: [7]
Alfred Soto: [5]

Sheffield dancehall twiddler makes friends…

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[6.30]

Michaelangelo Matos: Wow — a dawn-over-the-horizon bridge in the middle of the bubbliest groove I think I’ve heard all year. It’s a little late in coming, but this is my ideal summer jam.
[9]

Richard Swales: Bored out of my skull, I needed something to really cheer me up and this has done the job. If it looked like we were actually going to have a summer at some point I’d tip this for great things. Good clean fun.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: Some people are making comparisons to Basement Jaxx, and if you imagine them as less slick fans of ragga, you might get something like this. It is low on polish, but its beats are hugely infectious, and I like the MCing too. I suspect it is probably too rough in sound quality to really blow up, but I hope I’m wrong.
[8]

Martin Kavka: Is there anything to justify this song’s appeal over and above the fact that “shake it” rhymes with “naked”?
[2]

Ian Mathers: I already thought the vocals and those twinned keyboard figures that percolate through “Shake It” were overly busy to the point of annoyance, but then Toddla T has to prove my point by throwing in a totally unexpected and lovely middle eight that tosses in some fake strings. They sound great under the drums, and if they’d been any more than window dressing this might actually have been interesting.
[3]

Hillary Brown: Sometimes it’s this simple: some sounds I want to hear over and over again. Others I don’t. The piano bit, for example, is cute and falls into the former category. Repeated rhyming of “shake it” and “naked,” though, not so much.
[5]

John Seroff: Friendly, but solidly unremarkable.
[6]

Anthony Miccio: I rarely hear dancehall where the vocals, keyboards and beats connect equally – usually one of the ingredients is sluggish or overbearing. But, as this song makes me suspect, maybe I need to listen to more dancehall.
[7]

Alex Macpherson: It’s easy to be suspicious of a skinny white boy beloved of the fashion press making dancehall-not-dancehall – right up until you hear Toddla T’s music, that is, because the easy-going way that he synthesises British club and street culture is too glorious to resist. Supple and loose-limbed, a carnival vibe and le French touch casually commingle on “Shake It”, those cascading drums and ragga toasting sounding completely at home with gorgeous filter house synths and an unexpected, deliciously dreamy piano break.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: This electro-dancehall silliness is more fun than a barrel of crumpets, but not as fun as the Toddla T press release online that places him in the great Sheffield tradition of not only ABC and Cabaret Voltaire but also the Fat Truckers and Chicken Legs Weaver — neither of whom I heard of before, but now I kind of want to hear.
[7]

Cheyenne Kimball’s second shot at the Jukebox works a hell of a lot better than her first…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.67]

Martin Kavka: I must be a sucker for Cheyenne Kimball’s mandolin-playing. “Wild At Heart” is musically formulaic; for example, the chorus after the bridge has handclaps and minimal instrumentation. The lyrics, to the extent they’re not just empty images, are pro-abstinence — keep your wildness in your heart/pants, boys and girls! Even worse, it’s produced by Matt Serletic, who is responsible for all the worst songs of the 1990s, including Collective Soul’s “The World I Know,” Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be,” and Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.” But the jauntiness of mandolin keeps it from being too terribly stifling. She could unfurl a “Mission Accomplished” banner and I’d clap fervently.
[6]

Anthony Miccio: Take away the banal twang and this sounds a lot like one of Prince’s strummy spirituals (“7,” “Mountains”). Sadly, there’s no way to take away the banal twang.
[6]

Anthony Easton: This is really a deserted summer for interesting country singles, or even shit that is fun enough to drink in the back yard to.
[4]

Michaelangelo Matos: Now we know what all those mid-’70s harmonizers would have sounded like with digital vocal touching-up: like Cream of Wheat with all the texture removed.
[5]

Ian Mathers: It’s a shame Gloriana look like the cast of a new WB teen drama in their press photos; it certainly almost kept me from taking them seriously. And they deserve to be taken seriously, because “Wild At Heart” is more than another bit of evidence for my whole “country is the only genre to bother with what we used to call power pop” (because seriously, change the instrumentation and production here just a little and guys who still listen to Matthew Sweet or Fountains of Wayne or whatever would probably love this). It’s also the best example I’ve heard in 2009 of the pure ebullience pop music is capable of.
[9]

John Seroff: If Jack and Diane had kids conceived to Bonnie Raitt’s “Something to Talk About” and those children were raised on a steady diet of Alabama, Miley Cyrus and Tom Cochrane, this might be what their first single would sound like: sunny, toe-tappin’, hand-clappin’ anthem pablum with Downy fresh, bell-clear voices; shiny, recycled hooks and an irony-free joyful heart. Banjos, fiddles and the trappings of country be damned, “Wild at Heart” owes less to Willie Nelson than to High School Musical. I sure wouldn’t want to live on an exclusive diet of anything this sweet, soft and ultimately empty but it’s not like anybody’s forcing me. Pass the fluffernutters.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Four-part co-ed harmonies, which means Gloriana are to Little Big Town as Little Big Town are to Fleetwood Mac. Drum-machine-like approximations of Diddley-glam beat beneath, eventually briefly becoming more pronounced when the party voices come in. On paper, you’d think all that would add up to a hit at least as catchy as, say, Lady Antebellum’s. In reality, it feels kinda soggy.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: “I’ll follow you where you’re leading/To the first sweet taste of freedom”: Gloriana sifts the gold dust out of the greeting card platitudes, and with a stomping, clapping beat and a caught-up-in-the-moment burst of acoustic guitar, they explode into an aching, blissful chorus. It doesn’t make sense at all, their talk of “rebel moon[s]” and “stars burn[ing] like diamonds,” but this is what these vibrant summer songs are meant to do; they are meant to cut through the hot air and critical remove, tear down your day-to-day drudgeries, and turn life into a movie. “Wild at Heart” is young love and nightswimming and June evenings and stupid, stupid, clichéd nonsense that at some rare and precious times actually turns out to be as magical as it is meant to be. These are those minutes when the seconds slow down, and for a moment every little thing in life becomes weightless and easy. Maybe the song really works because of its carefree ’90s breeziness, or its fresh-scrubbed boy-girl harmonies, or maybe the kicker is in the second verse when Rachel Reinert takes the reins from the guys and lets her voice ring clear and strong (“Got nothing to lose but time!”), but those seem like post-facto rationalizations. No, “Wild at Heart” is wonderful simply because it is so hackneyed. Give in, for god’s sake, give in: to kisses and bottle rockets and summer and being “hell-bent on chasing down that crazy slide.” Sometimes life — and pop — actually is this good.
[10]

Alex Ostroff: Four-part harmonies make me think of Fleetwood Mac, the stomp-clap beat scans as Mellencamp, and the mandolin seems more decorative than organic. Cheyenne Kimball’s pipes do seem a better fit for country than her teenpop debut (tho). This doesn’t connect the way Taylor or Miranda do – they’re not saying anything interesting enough to move me or make me identify with them – but as a slice of feel good country-pop, it’s catchy and fun. I’m willing to wait and see where they go from here.
[7]

Hillary Brown: Obnoxiously catchy and yet… obnoxiously catchy. This is very waterpark-waiting-in-line-realizing-you’re-singing-along-to-a-song-you-professed-to-hate, which means it’s kind of a secret success.
[6]

Iain Mew: Somehow this comes off as much filthier than it would if it spelt out its sex a bit more clearly. Even the bits which don’t seem like they could be double entendres feel like they should be! Maybe it’s the constant, fevered enthusiasm of it, so suggestive of the heady influence of hormones at work. It’s infectious stuff, and when they just burst into applause at the end it’s easy to want to join in.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: Party country rock: the voices are good, the harmonies even better, and the beats are unusually insistent and energetic for the genre – in fact it sometimes sounds as if it is faster and livelier than the main voice is entirely comfy with. Kind of fun, though it could have used a decent song and less vacuous lyrics.
[6]

Stayin’ classy…

[Video][Website]
[6.64]

Anthony Miccio: “And I Am Telling You I’m All For Your Going (Just Hang Around Until I’m Done With My Big Melodramatic Stink About How Much I Don’t Care)”
[3]

Martin Skidmore: I think she’s perhaps the world’s most promising singer right now, maybe alongside Jazmine Sullivan. Her voice is absolutely beautiful, and she has all the technical gifts you could want; however, she is sometimes too laid back for me. This is a genuinely emotional performance, with her full palette of vocal tricks deployed to great effect, as she accepts the blame for a failed relationship. Her best so far, a glorious and moving single, and one of my favourite vocals of recent years.
[10]

Martin Kavka: Compare how she sings “You can say whatever you like, as long as we just say goodbye” at 0:53 and 2:05; it is as if every second Michele continues to sing causes her the deepest pain. Continuing to listen to this song after the two-minute mark makes me feel as if I’m violating her privacy, and for this reason I’m frankly not quite sure if I ever want to listen to this again. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad song; in fact, it shows that Michael Jackson’s “She’s Out Of My Life” is a steaming turd by comparison.
[8]

Ian Mathers: You really have passed the point of no return, buddy — once she gets to the point where she’s telling you that you can accuse her of anything, as long as you leave, it’s over. She’s not even fighting with you any more: that’s not wounded pride in the chorus, it’s the refusal to keep engaging with you that means you’re doomed. At least she’s letting you know via a dynamite vocal performance (one that reminds me that Whitney Houston used to be more than a reality show punchline).
[7]

Alfred Soto: The way Michele’s voice cracks just before a crucial outpouring of emotion goes a long way towards massaging this sinister example of submissiveness (Kelly Clarkson would have belted the bathos right on your lap). I mean, “You can say whatever you like/As long as we say goodbye” is an odd thing to tell a lover, especially if it’s clear that you think he’s a shit.
[6]

Hillary Brown: It’s not what one would ever describe as “catchy,” but even I can admit there’s occasionally more to a song than mere earwormishness, and Michele’s vocal ballet on this track is totally impressive, especially when she breaks out the glides. It’s kind of a big, showstopping number, which might not be your thing, but it’s very good for its category.
[6]

Iain Mew: A little too slight for anything other than Chrisette’s voice to make a first impression. Luckily, that’s intoxicating enough on its own to invite further listens. The lovely details all around then gradually come into their own too – the spooked wineglass-rim intro and soft little electronic swishes across the verses, the drums that sound like downscaled symphonic thunder and the final, sad little wave goodbye from the piano.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: Even her blubbering is worked out to the last detail, and while I could use fewer sharp break intakes she’s still got a good lyric to work with. I eagerly await Ne-Yo’s inevitable Broadway musical, no joke.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: Drums enter huge out of nowhere, cracking like they’re out to break a levee, but fade into the background as soon as there are other things to hear. Then Chrisette commences showing off her pipes and emotion, to admittedly not merely nutritious but also not especially memorable effect. Songwriting achieves competence.
[6]

John Seroff: Chrisette Michele can sing a blue streak; she’s technically proficient, clear toned, she has a unique and recognizable singing style and on her own she has somehow never moved me a quarter as much as when she was buddying up with Nas and Jigga. Michele’s producers build soul with a compass and a protractor: functional and cold. It’s not so much that this is a bad song or a boring song as it is a stuffy one. It’s rigid and unhuggable and it makes me worry about what American Idol is doing to our national talent pool while we’re not paying attention. See, I blame myself.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: Epiphany is very much of a piece, and the stylistic coherency of the album can result in an overall impression of blandness, where tracks bleed into one another with little distinction. In isolation, Chrisette’s songs are detailed and different relationship perspectives, her voice an evocative ache. Here, she presents a no-fault break-up song, neither busting his windows, or in love with another man. Remorseful but determined, acknowledging anger without getting defensive, “Blame It On Me” is the perfect soundtrack for self-righteously being the bigger person.
[8]

Hey, cross me over…

[Video][Website]
[5.31]

Anthony Miccio: MSTRKRFT nuking beats around a boisterous rapper = stoopid. MSTRKRFT nuking a tepid toss-off that goes “All my friends said you’d break my heart/ A heartbreaker right from the start” = stupid.
[4]

Alfred Soto: 808 and Heartbreaker.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: Don’t think I’ve heard John Legend sound quite so brooding (I don’t know his catalog well, so feel free to disabuse me in the comments). But he’s interesting mainly because he’s changing pace; on the record he’s probably the dullest aspect, and this is not a record with a lot going on.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: I’m not convinced that throbbing, tense electro beats really suit Legend, even with piano used in a big way, and he sounds a bit awkward and mechanical on this at times, following rhythms he isn’t comfortable with, especially when emphasising all three syllables of the title. The music’s pretty good – I’ve never been a huge fan, but it has drive and richness and intelligence.
[6]

Andrew Casillas: MSTRKRFT seems to know nothing about contemporary R&B, and thus how to appropriately utilize John Legend. Luckily, John Legend is always consistent-as-clockwork, and serves as a handy guide for what’s actually a pretty decent tune.
[7]

John M. Cunningham: It’s nice to hear a MSTRKRFT song that doesn’t take place in a discotheque populated only by lovelorn robots, but John Legend, who soared on his own four-to-the-floor dance single (last year’s “Green Light”), comes off as rather milquetoast here. Points mostly for that stately, emphatic piano that runs throughout.
[6]

John Seroff: I’m aware that this sort of post-shoegaze upbeat electronic simplicity is in vogue at the moment, but there’s an important distinction between being stripped down and being lazy. No matter how many effects and tricks and throwaway, three-note John Legend intonations you throw on top of a hook with the originality and complexity of Frere Jacques, this just sounds lazy to me. The lyrics are puerile, the sentiment is plastic and the beat is recycled. It’s a Similac love song and while it’s innocuous and brief enough not to be offensive, it is also unworthy of mention by the same note. Life’s too short for pop songs with this little zip; you could dance to it, but why?
[4]

Hillary Brown: I think I prefer this to anything John Legend’s done on his own. It has energy and a sharp beat that provides a great fast-walking pace, and while it isn’t hugely memorable, it’ll crop up later from your unconscious, which digs it.
[7]

Matt Cibula: In a couple of weeks, I have my first dentist appointment in a few years. I expect that this song will be playing in the waiting room, and that the tooth-cleaning thing will sound kind of like the synth-thing that comes in at about 2:20. Going to the dentist is, unlike this song, kind of necessary.
[4]

Ian Mathers: I’m not a fan of either act on their own, but it turns out that Legend’s competent balladry and MSTRKRFT’s Justice-aping actually go fairly well together. Legend benefits from having a fairly strict structure he has to work within, and MSTRKRFT benefit from having a human on one of their songs.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: This is a pleasant, even perhaps really good song that arrives somewhere between the second and last thirds of an album that you like; a song which, one perceptive or slightly melancholy day, becomes your new favorite. That does not in any way make it a single, sadly.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Meh enough to almost make me miss Death From Above 1979, if only because they inspired a really good CSS song once.
[3]

Additional Scores

Andrew Brennan: [8]
Anthony Easton: [5]
Doug Robertson: [5]
Keane Tzong: [3]

So it sounds a bit like Queen, then?…

[Video][Website]
[2.94]

Matt Cibula: These Scaramouches Really Know How to Do the Fannydangle!; Or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Almost Like Muse’s Metaphysical Graffiti.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: I really like Muse, I admit it. One of the things I’ve always liked about them is that their melodrama knows no bounds, except that which stops them turning into Queen, who were always appalling. Here, they not only crossed that line, they wanked over it.
[0]

Iain Mew: Spend ages adrift on piano meandering, catch a glimpse at last of glorious excess… and turns out to just be “We are the Champions”. What a rip-off. Plus it’s not like anyone’s ever listened to Muse for the lyrics, but man these are bad. At least on “Butterflies & Hurricanes” and “Knights of Cydonia” they were ignorable platitudes.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: This sounds like a hamfisted attempt to do their own “Bohemian Rhapsody”, especially in the transition to the first loud part, where the harmonies are very Queen. It’s politically fatuous, which is certainly no barrier to success, but I hope its ugly clumsiness will mean it doesn’t catch on. The song actually stops after a while, and we get just piano and strings for a long while. I hated prog the first time round, and I very much don’t want it back.
[0]

John Seroff: “United States” is a puffed up but heartfelt bit of End of The Empire symphonic balladry, full of sweep and bombast that codas parenthetically at (Collateral Damage) for more than two minutes of eine kleine poppmusik: piano and strings providing an entr’acte for the changing of the guard from new to newer world order. This meticulously arranged rock operetta so assiduously apes the sheen of Queen that it flirts with copyright infringement. Mr. Mercury isn’t the only target of this not-a-cover cover; equal debts are owed to Messrs. Page, Waters, L. Webber and Wainwright. It’s almost unlikely that the song could emerge as something bigger and more interesting than the sum tribute of its flamboyant influences, but surprise! It does, and it improves notably on multiple listens to boot.
[7]

Anthony Miccio: I like how Muse infused Radiohead moaning with Queen pyrotechnics on the last album, but this is more like a Bono op-ed performed by… uh… some classical-crazed contemporary of Queen that didn’t know how to write hooks. (What, you think I’d be familiar with that shit?)
[2]

Anthony Easton: Serious cat is filled with piano ballad sadness, let us cheer him up with tales of pirate adventure (that soft to hard is Queen via Billy Corgan’s worst excesses, isn’t it?).
[4]

Richard Swales: I’ve never really got Muse. They’re perfectly good at what they do and everything, but there’s just been something that’s never clicked with me. Here, for example, we’ve got them doing their best Queen impression, but while they’ve got all the pomp and circumstance, they just don’t have the charisma to pull it off. At least the producer has cut down on the grating intakes of breath that have littered most of their previous output.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: I assumed I’d hate this, and do honestly think the singer is fairly awful and still wonder why “prog-rock” bands these days leave out the “rock”. And as an anti-war protest, at least judging from the lyrics I can make out, it seems like the work of nitwits. But the audacious ambition makes me chuckle anyway.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: All the pomp of one of those parades Kim Jong-Il organises to showcase North Korean might, but without even the thrill of genuine grandiose spectacle.
[0]

Doug Robertson: This is like listening to a Pop Goes Classical style CD and, while it definitely sounds nothing like anything else on mainstream radio right now, this isn’t always a good thing.
[3]

Hillary Brown: Close to being better — that voice! — but it’s too long and meandering without ever reaching transcendent weirdness or the real pop melodies of what it’s emulating.
[6]

Al Shipley: I liked what I heard off Muse’s last album, and Queen is one of my favorite bands of all time, but really, fuck this shit.
[2]

Additional Scores

Rodney J. Greene: [5]
Ian Mathers: [0]
Michaelangelo Matos: [1]
Alfred Soto: [2]

A love like this deserves mojitos…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.41]

Martin Kavka: Get a room.
[1]

Chuck Eddy: “They have a DIY attitude towards their music. They also have a wide-ranging musical taste, including top 40 hip hop…In 2009, their song ‘Daylight’ was featured in a Bacardi commercial; the band, however, insists that there are industries they will never collaborate with, such as cigarette companies.” Another reason to be glad I no longer live near Brooklyn.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: Matt’s flat, geeky vocals are very annoying, the kind of voice that makes you listen for the jokes, the parody, but there doesn’t seem to be anything like that here. Other than the percussion, it strikes me as rubbish.
[3]

Michaelangelo Matos: Like Hutch Harris with an awful case of the cutes singing over tack piano that seems to have badly misconstrued the idea of olde-time music hall. Minus the vocal, a 4.
[2]

Edward Okulicz: There’s a killer keyboard riff and an awfully accomplished hook hiding from Matt’s utterly dreadfully strained, parodically nerdy, melody-mangling singing here. That the song comes awfully close to working despite that handicap is both creditable and painfully frustrating.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Rinky-dink keys and a wild-eyed, fervent vocal delivery add up to one of indie-pop’s more irresistible pleasures in 2009. Matt & Kim have an unabashed enthusiasm that could easily make their amateurism seem contrived, but they attack their (really quite hummable) melodies with such earnestness that their their big-city-as-playground narratives seem anthemic and rousing. Which is apt; “Daylight” hints at a sense of freedom that genuinely is liberating, and the duo’s lack of cynicism in relation to that fact reflects a risk well worth applauding.
[8]

Mallory O’Donnell: I was predisposed to dislike this violently, and I did. Every sound being played here is good, but each is being employed in an almost medically uncomfortable manner. Also, it’s only really considered mugging when you stop doing it once and a while.
[3]

Ian Mathers: We don’t get to choose our favourites, and we certainly don’t get to decide how others feel about them; so I fully expect one of the brilliant writers here on the Jukebox will write something pithy, cutting, and at least partially true about “Daylight,” and as I read it I will wince. Because however gnomic and private the literal meaning of these words are, the confluence of sonic, emotional and experiential factors that determines how you feel about a song after you’ve listened to it dozens of times means that for me “Daylight” is the sound of figuring out that things are going to be okay; the sound of tackling your underwhelming adult life with whatever resources you can muster; the sound of how we put our lives together, piecemeal. I mean, the first time I heard “Daylight” I thought it was just a great pop song — I’m a sucker for Matt & Kim’s drums-and-keyboards-and-yelling-and-grinning approach, and I think Grand has been drastically overlooked by people this year — and certainly the skittering beat and the collision between the bright electric piano melody and the swelling organ during the chorus are/were immediately compelling to me. And given their normal scrappy, buzzy feel, the fact that “Daylight” suddenly feels widescreen, epic (or as epic as this music and these lives can manage) both delights and moves me. But whatever it lacks in literal sense, “and in the daylight anywhere feels like home” is still the heart of the song, and the heart of the feeling “Daylight” engenders in me: one not of rootlessness but of connection, of community rather than isolation (and it’s no coincidence that this song and this album are as much about Matt & Kim’s neighbourhood as anything else), of optimism breaking through aimlessness. I want to keep writing about how great this song is and what it means to me, but I’m essentially filibustering now, hoping that if this is long enough your eye will be drawn to this blurb rather than one that might be more cynical or more clearheaded, and you’ll give “Daylight” a chance. Because it deserves one.
[10]

Matt Cibula: For all its (forced) energy, this kind of defines “half-assed indie hufflepuff” for me. Either pump up the Icicle Works Beat or go full-on Bis Hyper-Active Adorable Nutter mode or borrow some fun, or something.
[3]

Iain Mew: This is somewhat akin to being cornered by someone with what, at first, appears to be a vaguely amusing anecdote, but who then just goes on and on and on over the same points until you can’t imagine why you ever cared in the first place.
[3]

John Seroff: “Daylight” is relentlessly goofy and aggressively, almost confrontationally, upbeat; it’s almost daring you not to like it. Not to worry lil’ single; your jittery, catchy charm is plenty infectious and your wackadoo crackpot grin of a music video ain’t half bad either. With positive vibrations like these, I was somewhat surprised this canned joy wasn’t fueled by a Christian ideology; punk this sunny smells straightedge. Imagine my surprise bummer when I discovered that it’s already being used to pimp rum. From sweet and happy-go-lucky to Bacardi bitch faster than you can say “Lights Out”? Not much fun in that.
[7]

Additional Scores

Andrew Casillas: [5]
John M. Cunningham: [7]
Anthony Easton: [3]
Anthony Miccio: [4]
Doug Robertson: [8]
Keane Tzong: [2]

D&B anthem edges towards crossover…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.17]

Hillary Brown: You mean like the kind you might start seeing upon repeated subjection to this grab bag of whatnot, which is neither good hip hop nor good dance?
[2]

Mallory O’Donnell: I thought of a frightening idea the other day: imagine a universe, identical to our own in all respects save one. In this bizarre, jumbled-up world, when the year 1998 ended, it didn’t just start up again, but instead turned into the next year, and then, at the end of that year, it happened again. And again, and with each new year arrived new things. Scared me shitless.
[2]

Andrew Unterberger: Looks we finally have a rival to Calvin Harris’s “I’m Not Alone” for Most Unexpected Mid-Song Dance Freakout of the year. “Red Mist” sounds like a quality Just Blaze rip for its first minute, before out of nowhere, it positively explodes into an old school drum and bass throwdown. Not that I’m complaining, mind you — hell, I didn’t even know for sure that people were still making jungle / drum and bass records out there, and I’m pleased as punch that apparently they are. “And my mind feels like I’m about to erupt” is about as good a trigger phrase as an eruption like this could ask for, besides.
[7]

Anthony Miccio: It’s ironic that the soul-sample swagger of the first quarter sounds fresher than the drum’n’bass that follows. Sure, those Fatboy Slim volume drops are more than a decade old, but those horn charts are undoubtedly older.
[5]

Anthony Easton: If the lyrics are all about pulverizing people with yr fists, shouldnt the music throttle?
[4]

Martin Skidmore: As Adam F showed long ago, these frantic beats are a great backing for rap, and Byrd layers in more than most in the genre, making this an exciting record which always offers plenty to listen to. Tremendous, although the misleading opening is an odd move.
[9]

Martin Kavka: Drum ‘n’ bass has always been a melodramatic genre, even by pop standards, and thus a prime target for suspicion that its toughness is as precarious as a soufflé. For me, however, this Roni-Sized Bond theme doesn’t collapse under the weight of its own pretensions; I suspect it’s because none of the various elements overstays its welcome.
[8]

Matt Cibula: This Roni-Sized slamdance is no longer as relevant as it might once have been, but it’s pleasant enough as these things go. And, as these things go, it went.
[6]

Additional Scores

Chuck Eddy: [6]
Michaelangelo Matos: [4]
Alex Ostroff: [7]
John Seroff: [2]