Can you spot the record producer in this picture?…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.50]

Martin Skidmore: What if prog had emerged out of funk rather than rock roots? Um, okay, we already had George Clinton… Anyway, this has a kind of R&Bish clapping beat at the back, some distant and tuneless vocals and lots of pulsing synth fannydangle. I find it very tedious.
[3]

Matt Cibula: Like Heidi Klum on a stationary bike.
[4]

Mallory O’Donnell: In the internet-bred world of bedroom producer kiddies with musical chemistry sets, Dam-Funk is a true alchemist. “Mirrors” plays with his newfound interest in vocals to great effect, updating Clinton’s psychedelic pixie voice for a make-out session with some light metaphysical fondling. Strange and weirdly inspiring.
[8]

John Seroff: At its best, Dam Funk’s 2009 album Toeachizown sounds quite a bit like a collection of Basement Jaxx remixes of Sign O The Times-era Prince outtakes. “Mirrors” qualifies as one of the best (and shortest) songs on that excellent double LP; the wiggly organ, marching band beat and Sir Nose D’Void of Funk vocals all signal a cerebral, spacy Parliament kind of high that makes me wanna ride. More’s the pity this kind of egoless disco funk can’t get mainstream MTV/BET/radio placement; I’d gratefully welcome Dam blowing, say, David Guetta off the charts and out of the water.
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: Good on whoever decided this was a single, though that couldn’t have been hard: only one other song on Toeachizown is shorter. The tremolo synth and thick handclaps and fizzy bass are the focus, Damon’s slithering vocal a supporting element, but the music is so hooky it hardly matters.
[8]

Doug Robertson: There’s something delightfully sleazy about this 8-bit soundtrack to Gameboy porn. Sure, using the cartridge slot like that will probably invalidate the warranty, but after listening to this the prospect will never seem so enticing. [8]

Alfred Soto: Linn drums that evoke Prince’s “Pop Life,” stuttering synths, and a decently insinuating vocal almost worm your way into your brain, but speed is of the essence.
[5]

David Moore: For a song that seems constructed entirely of bits of tossed-off studio gimmickry — the silly “what does this knob do” vocals, the tacky synth-shore wash, the extraneous solo flourishes — it still manages to clomp and stumble its way into something memorable.
[7]

Has now spent more than half a year on the Billboard hip-hop/R&B charts, so obviously we reviewed These New Puritans first…

[Video][Website]
[6.12]

Al Shipley: This is the kind of slow burning R&B radio megahit that usually gets to me sooner or later, but after months of ubiquity its charms have still kind of eluded me. I feel the drama, I enjoy the “ooh-ooh-ooh” hook, but the overall effect is kind of a shrug.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: A big R&B ballad with lots of drama, which she carries off superbly, moving from breathy light notes to a powerful big chorus. She sometimes sounds too consciously mannered, but she is a very gifted singer, and mostly sounds terrific. I like this a lot, but I also suspect there could be genuinely great things from her in the future.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Her singing comes impressively close to embodying the genuine cheated-on soul thing rather than just being “about” the cheated-on soul thing; production’s a bit Lisa Stansfield try-hard, though. Bonus: parts where she goes “yoo-hoo-hoo” sound like “Cool One” by ’70s rock band Starz!
[7]

Anthony Easton: Tragedies of ennui and the domestic always make me feel isolated; the isolation works as a kind of nasty feed back loop. This is one of the better songs about this ambiguity, of the inability but desire to maintain the sexual status quo.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Co-dependent forever more, and damn proud of it.
[5]

Mallory O’Donnell: We’re all helpless and a little possessed when we’re in love, but you seem to be taking it rather personally. I’m always ready to sympathize with the wounded party, but the overemphasis on your own lack of an active role in this relationship strikes me as being way too passive-aggressive. Besides, the mere fact that you call making love “ooh hoo hoo” tells me you’re not ready.
[2]

Hillary Brown: I don’t love this song, but I also can’t help but acknowledge that Fiona’s kind of doing a great job with the tale of woe and drama as enacted in vocal swoops over an extremely simple backing track. It’s like Keyshia Cole before she decided she was more interested in being sexy than in being righteously wrong.
[5]

Martin Kavka: I usually have little patience for indecisive women in pop. If he’s cheating, either stay (and stop complaining) or leave (after which you won’t need to complain anymore). It’s not rocket science, you know? But Fiona’s performance, which I find to be more affecting than the strongest of Jazmine Sullivan tracks, and little curlicues of production — is there a sampled noise of fingers sliding up a fretboard? — persuade me that it’s not blameworthy to be conflicted about the decision to leave someone.
[9]

Jukebox debut for the child with the most terrifying street team in the western hemisphere…

[Video][Myspace]
[4.09]

Doug Robertson: Did we learn nothing from the Aaron Carter years? And is Ludacris really that desperate for the money?
[0]

Al Shipley: With the latest ruination of the pop charts coming from Drake and this YouTube-approved bag of hair, my personal theme song these days is “Blame Canada.”
[3]

Alex Ostroff: I was going to write something utterly dismissive about the inane lyrics, the grating loop of “Yup!…Uh-huh,” the absence of anything resembling a memorable tune, and a general apology on behalf of Canada for inflicting more bad tier-C pop music on the world. But a harmless teenager making mediocre R&B isn’t worth that kind of ire — it’s not like I expected anything different. Still, something I think is actively bad would at least be interesting — this lowest-common-denominator stuff offends my intelligence and yours (although that skeletal piano beat isn’t half bad). The only person involved in this who should know better (and thus deserves to be ashamed) is Ludacris.
[3]

Chuck Eddy: First Jesse McCartney, now this: When did Luda become to the go-to guy for blossoming blue-eyed-soul boys requiring rap assistance? His tweenage nostalgia adds more here than he added to “How Do You Sleep?”, too. But Jesse put that song across, where Justin just shows promise in his high notes.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: Yet another Dream/Tricky job. Frankly his “baby no” heartbreak line sounds perky and rather happy, which fucks this up totally for me. I smiled only when Ludacris came in, with a mightier and more charming guest verse than the limp rest of this single deserves.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: After hearing him yawl his way through the opening lines of “We Are the World 25 for Haiti,” I expected the worst. And I’ll figure this is likely the best he’s capable of until proven otherwise, but for now it’s acceptable enough, probably buoys the radio OK, features an appealingly simple Luda drop-in. If anything, it sounds like it’s aimed at older women, not younger ones.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Much more age-appropriate then I feared.
[4]

Alex Macpherson: I really hope Will uses a screenshot of the girl pushing this strange child away near the start of the video, because at that moment I really, really feel her.
[2]

Martin Kavka: One of the first things I learned from pop was that love could not be commodified. Think of Little Eva’s “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby”: “I don’t mind when you lend my clothes, my jewelry and such, but there’s one thing you don’t touch.” So when I hear a boy who hasn’t yet turned sixteen respond to being dumped by saying that his bank balance makes him a good boyfriend (“I’ll buy you anything, I’ll buy you any ring”), I die inside.
[3]

Hillary Brown: I’m sure I could come up with a million horrible things to say about Justin Bieber in the abstract, but the fact is that cute nonthreatening boys with pretty voices and good material tend to have me feeling like Lisa Simpson with the Corey hotline. I may be behind my 11-year-old sistren when it comes to this bandwagon, but I’m kicking myself for taking so long to check this little dude’s stuff out. Rad.
[9]

Alfred Soto: Critics prefer teenage female pop singers because the critics are mostly heterosexual men and the good singers tend to think aloud in song. The boys are too guarded and they’re, well, boys, which explains why the charge of manufacturing still sticks. These days — hell, in the Kriss Kross days too — teenage boys express themselves better in R&B and hip-hop, in which they can mitigate their hormonal confusion in role playing. This is a long way of saying that Bieber’s not unattractive Auto-tuned squeak pales before Ludacris’ cameo. He’s like a big brother here — warm and convincing — and for Bieber’s sake I wish he eventually grows into the performer able to reward Luda’s attentiveness.
[4]

I bet he has a lovely smile…

[Video][Myspace]
[7.80]

Chuck Eddy: Jumping is fun. Especially beneath bridges and undperpasses, where it echoes a lot. On drugs.
[6]

Matt Cibula: THS WRTR LVS THS TRCK, T S FNKY ND MYSTRS
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: His gift for the brief vocal snippet that catches you up short, not to mention for simple-sounding silver-lined keyboards and implacable bass grooves, shows no signs of abating. This is slighter than “Hyph Mngo” — by definition it has to be — but it’s as lustrous, and it’s already sounded good in a half-dozen DJ sets I’ve heard, with plenty more to come, I’m sure.
[8]

Erick Bieritz: I was slightly underwhelmed by “Hyph Mngo”. There were so many interesting sounds bursting through the seams of this scene, and I wondered if that track had been semi-arbitrarily singled out on the strength of a few good reviews and a catchy nom de plume. So it’s to my surprise that followup “BRKLN CLLN” is sticking with me so much. “Hyph Mngo” can be numbing in its insistence, and the decision to let the vox fall back in the mix makes “BRKLN CLLN” more rewarding.
[7]

Doug Robertson: More tripped out aceness that’s not so much music, more a state of mind. It sums up that moment where everything is about the beat and nothing, nothing will distract you from it. It’s as blissful as a summer meadow, albeit one that is at its best in a dark and dingy basement club. This isn’t music to listen to, it’s music to experience.
[9]

Martin Skidmore: I find it danceable, exciting and invigorating, and wanted another three or four minutes of it. This will take some beating among dance tracks again this year.
[10]

Mallory O’Donnell: While this is not nearly as atmospheric as the (perhaps a bit) over-thought “Hyph Mngo,” it’s loads more fun. Drums so fresh they scrape your ears clean, samples tastefully deployed yet memorable enough, and then that amazing space-funk breaks out all over the place. Whatever dubstep is called this week isn’t to the point — this is nothing more or less than a timeless underground dance track, circa right now.
[10]

John Seroff: I imagine that the P-Fork’s crowd carrying of the Joy Orbison standard is prelude to inevitable backlash: “There’s not enough soul in these beats,” “I don’t see what the big deal about retro house is,” “Joker and Guido do this better,” etc. There’s likely some truth to all the above but that doesn’t stop good music from sounding good. Less a single than a passing mood, but I daresay I like it almost as much as “Hyph Mngo”.
[7]

Ian Mathers: I actually had to go back to “Hyph Mngo” to make sure this wasn’t just some sort of remix. It turns out that played back-to-back they sound very different, especially in terms of the vocal sample. But now, listening to “Brkln Clln” again, all I can hear is a watered down version of the effect “Hyph Mngo” had and has on me. There’s nothing wrong with this track, per se, but the way it both pales in comparison to its predecessor and kind of drags the other track down with a little are not things I am a fan of.
[6]

Kat Stevens: Same chef, same ingredients, but this time the recipe calls for gas mark 6 instead of a low simmer: “Hyph Mngo” took nearly two minutes for the handclaps to burst through the dry clicks, but “BRKLN CLLN” drops the same handclaps after 58 seconds, ensuring the main course doesn’t get cold while we’re eating the starter.
[8]

And it’s at this point that I wish I’d used the picture of her in the Kermit dress. Too late, too late…

[Video][Website]
[7.08]

Alex Ostroff: As the sole track on The Fame Monster without any references to the macabre, it lacks the conceptual weirdness of GaGa that has grown in appeal over the past year. The song itself is a vague rewrite of a minor Backstreet Boys hit. Frequent collaborator RedOne is traded out for DarkChild, who hasn’t had a true moment of pop brilliance since “Say My Name”. Perhaps it’s his reunion with Beyoncé, or just an affinity for songs about awkward phone calls, but the production here is ace — from the harp loop to the pounding synths, the snare hits during Beyoncé’s verse, and the ringing phones and dial tones used as percussion in the chorus. Meanwhile, after the awkward attempt at seduction that was their last collaboration, GaGa and Beyoncé return to what they both do best — ignoring their incoming calls and celebrating their financial, creative and personal independence. In my dreams, a future awards-show performance of “Telephone” will feature Joanna Newsom plucking the opening harp figure.
[9]

Kat Stevens: “Bad Romance” may have been an all-conquering stand-alone masterpiece, but at first “Telephone” really does sound like it was cobbled together for a bonus album at the last minute. The lyrics are shoe-horned into the delicate opening melody like a square peg in a dodecagonal hole, and there is no universe in which “And-I can-not text-you with-a drink-in my-hand, eh” scans well, even over the most basic three-chord off-the-shelf progression. But the awkward, annoying delivery sticks — in fact, it’s as awkward and annoying as someone ringing you up moaning about their FEELINGS when you’re concentrating on the important business of i) recreating the dance routine to “Tragedy” with your chums ii) managing not to spill your pint over everyone. The rest of the song is a jumble of brilliant choruses (“call when you want/cos there’s no-one home/and you’re not gonna reach my telephone”) and rep-rep-rep-repeating syllables, which seems to be the closest thing Gaga has to a trademark sound. Most importantly, the guest spot proves key: Beyoncé rises to the bait and throws a massive strop at the caller (backed by her marching band) but Gaga keeps focused, no histrionics, not wanting to waste her time or energy on puny human emotion when there’s drunken dancing to be had. Fire and Ice! Doing the Macarena together round their handbags! What better way to let off steam?
[9]

Pete Baran: Clever. I know next to nothing about musicology, and even I can see the way Gaga threads a number of insanely catchy motifs through “Telephone” until it collapses into a bubble of joy. The “kinda busy” is repeated twice at the start and then never said again in the song, yet its lilting tune does all the lyrical work for it. The harp intro contrasts with the buzzy electronics in the way that Gaga’s harsh and oft-treated voice contrasts with Beyoncé/Sasha Fierce’s tremendous pipes. Not quite as unrestrainedly bonkers as Bad Romance, there is still the sense of a performer on top of her game, throwing everything and the kitchen sink into a surprisingly sweet song about a phone stalker.
[9]

Martin Skidmore: A diva team-up of this scale is bound to be unstoppable, and there is plenty of energy and effort on show. I remain unpersuaded by Gaga’s singing or rapping, though, and while there is no shortage of ideas on this, it seems something of a mess, and in the end it irritated me.
[4]

David Moore: A master class in how to sell stupid — which Gaga does way more convincingly than Beyoncé (mercifully unremarkable dead weight here, props to Gaga for providing a context so overbearing that it upstaged her). The not-so-secret weapon is the post-chorus patter blanketed in phone chirps, at least as annoying as Blackout Crew. Which I wasn’t expecting to be a point in the song’s favor, but there it is. Not sure why but I really wish this song was about a land line.
[7]

Hillary Brown: Even if the message weren’t one with which I firmly agree (phones suck), but the medium would still stick this song in my ear with the force of pneumatics. Absolutely made for a ringtone, it’s a track that doesn’t skimp on catchy beat, melody, danceability, or anything else, and both ladies contribute a great deal to its appeal. Expect to hear this about a kabillion times over the coming months, including at sorority karaoke night.
[8]

Alex Macpherson: Just as everyone’s finally caved to her persona, Gaga goes to the trouble of recruiting one of the most maniacal performers around and… releases her most anonymous single to date. A counter-intuitive strategy, but one that works superbly: Gaga subsumes herself into the music, mimicking the synth stabs with her extended vowels, while Beyoncé convulses midway between her innate drama and the mechanistic motion of the beat. The hook is irresistible, as is the thoroughly ’10s take on the club scenario: historically somewhere for escape and self-discovery, it makes sense to cast it as a place of liberation from the intrusive, stressful ubiquity of modern lines of communication.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The only way in which I can think putting these two together might work is to celebrate a girls night out. The music they’re dancing to is just okay though, which makes me wonder why they’re making such a big deal of hanging out together.
[6]

Al Shipley: This thing fills up with life at the exact point when Beyoncé shows up in the same way “Videophone” deflated the moment Gaga arrived. Not that I worship B or hate Gaga, but their skills are fundamentally different in a way that can only flatter one of them when held up side by side.
[4]

Chuck Eddy: Especially when going into those onomatopoeic busy signal parts (reminds me of “Western Union” by Five Americans), Gaga sure rides this big beat better than her pompous partner does. But she can’t make me care about her connections and disconnections — at least not so much, this time.
[7]

Doug Robertson: Gaga is coasting a bit here, and this isn’t going to be as all-encompassing a hit as “Bad Romance” or “Poker Face”, but it’s a decent enough track and if this was someone’s debut then everyone would be giving it more thumbs up than is humanly possible. As it is, she’s set her own bar pretty high and this just seems to be lazily limboing under it without even trying to see if there’s any way to jump over it. Dick Fosbury would be disappointed.
[6]

Renato Pagnani: The real metaphor here is not dancefloor as refuse from clingy boyfriends but from dancefloor as sanctuary from a fractal society where constant beeps, signals, and pulses are ineludible. And yes, I do recognize the delicious irony of the song being a thumping electro sledgehammer.
[8]

So… there’s situations in which it’s unsuitable to wear a stetson? Seriously?…

[Video][Website]
[5.89]

Michaelangelo Matos: I wasn’t paying attention to the playlist either of the first two times this came on, so the chorus caught me short the first and made me laugh out loud in surprise the second. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a song before in which someone so blatantly sets up a line–not as a lyricist or singer, but as a character in a situation, fishing for someone to ask, “Gee, that sure was an intriguing trail-off at the end of that coy, half-revealing sentence you just said. Where are you from, anyway?” so that you can say, “I’M FROM ALA-FREAKIN’-BAMA!” I think some night when I’m bored I’m going to go to a bar and start talking with someone and get them to be all, “Where are you from?” and I’ll just lay it on ’em: “I’M FROM ALA-FREAKIN’-BAMA!” And then I’ll leave, and they’ll be so fucking stunned, dude.
[4]

Erick Bieritz: The freakin’ big chorus gets the job done, but Trace’s picture of the Yellowhammer State seems questionable. Why boots by Timberland, a Boston-founded company with a broad national identity and, as far as I can tell, no special connection to Alabama? He can muscle his way through the chorus, but the verses need to be about the details.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: Rivalries being what they are, country stations here in Longhorn country definitely don’t play this — matter of fact, one Austin station has been hosting a promotional contest where you print out “Flat Bama” from their website and send in photos of him “in compromising situations.” So Central Texans clearly don’t know how freakin’ much big bam boom they’re missing. Trace is one butt-rockin’ dude, as he’s often demonstrated, and he puts more badonkadonk on it here than he ever has before. Also, he clearly has no qualms about his career balancing gravity with novelty. Probably the best song with Juicy Fruit in it since Biggie — maybe even since Mtume. He calls Alabama the Crimson Tide. Call him Deacon Blues.
[8]

Ian Mathers: I’m a Canadian. We find this kind of thing terribly vulgar. Also, why do they keep repeating “no Tae Bo” at the end?
[5]

Anthony Easton: I love this song. I love every ounce of the cocksure peacock strutting, and I want to have drunken, sloppy, cheap motel room sex with Trace Adkins, and a bevy of Talladega tanned beauties.
[9]

Martin Skidmore: Like most country attempts to rock these days, it rather lumbers at times, but Trace has a strong and bluesy enough voice to make it more or less work, and the yelled backing vocals on the chorus appeal, and the guitar solo has some energy, so overall it’s one of the best of its kind I’ve heard in a while.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: I’ve heard that riff somewhere before but never so propulsively, and while the set-up is clumsy, the pay-off (in the shape of that ENORMOUS chorus, even better when sung by the crowd) is worth it.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Look, I’m a sucker for “Bang a Gong” rips and shouted backing vocals, but the Singles Jukebox crew could cobble together a string of rhymes better than what Adkins comes up here. If I didn’t know better I’d swear the liberal elite planted him in a red state for Manchurian candidate purposes.
[3]

Doug Robertson: Well, if nothing else at least it makes a change from songs about New bloody York.
[4]

With a bit of luck, we’re gonna have a busy old day on here…

[Video][Website]
[4.33]

Kat Stevens: It’s rather defeatist for JLS to claim there is only “one shot” at success (whether it be in love or singing competitions), perhaps even hypocritical. Dudes, you came second yet are still doing Quite Well! The lyrics are worryingly similar to all the other obstacle-overcoming goal-achieving winner’s songs we’ve had to suffer for the last decade – it makes one wonder if this is a Louis Walsh Special. The trance synths weaving around the mushy platitudes don’t have enough momentum to stop everyone nodding off at the back, stopping and starting like they can’t remember whether they left the gas on or not. JLS are lovely boys and good singers, but with this unimaginative chart ballast they are fast using up all my reserves of goodwill.
[2]

Michaelangelo Matos: “You only get one shot/So make it count/You might never get this moment again.” For the sake of our ears, let’s hope you don’t.
[3]

Martin Skidmore: A dull heavily autotuned ballad start, but then we get some pulsing rave noises and it picks up a bit. I liked when there were two voices at work, but it’s sort of a weak song, and I think they are only quite good singers. I am still unconvinced that they are our new great boyband.
[6]

Doug Robertson: It’s the third single, so naturally heartfelt balladry is put centre stage for a boy band who are remarkably successful given how remarkably bland they are. There’s a few bleeps and electronic swooshes in the background in an attempt to make them seem vaguely edgy, but ultimately the desperation not to offend is offensive in itself.
[4]

John Seroff: It’s almost impressive how many bad impulses and creatively bankrupt gimmicks are on display here. There’s the cynical emotional manipulation of Ryan Tedder, the bland autojuked “urban/Mickey Mouse club” indistinction of Iyaz or Jay Sean, the empty-headed beatjacking and flaccid swagger of BEP. It’s a thick syrup of PRODUCT so concentrated that it should be doled out in a pump dispenser with requisite warning labels.
[2]

Matt Cibula: This contains every element I usually clown singles for but I kind of like it anyway. Like Lonnie Lynn once said, “I’m a vegan but I still gotta get that cheese.”
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Boy-to-boy relationship advice, possibly nodding to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and considerably more persuasive in Backstreet mode than AutoTune mode. The Europop synth break is a cute touch, though.
[6]

Erick Bieritz: There’s a rather decent jam somewhere in here – it peeks through in the “magazines, glossy magazines” and “da-da-da” bits, and the slow jam pace suits the moment-in-time subject matter. But if they wanted to make something for the club, they should have dumped some funky on it, rather than sliming it with this Euro ick.
[5]

David Moore: Dance-pop synths and sluggish balladry react like acid and base, resulting in disappointing soggy volcano.
[5]

So apparently she’s just left her label, or her label’s left her, which means that this song is somehow even less relevant than it already was…

[Video][Website]
[4.07]

David Moore: When I toured the BBC, the guide told me that J-Lo was the only person to demand to be driven across the yard separating the main sidewalk from the entrance, despite this being a luxury reserved only for the Queen. Flash forward about five years and she’s getting pummelled by a plodding Dream/Tricky production, Louboutin more a goal than a given. Her diva entitlement over the cheap skeleton beat creates an odd dissonance, like she drank champagne on the bus to the studio.
[5]

John Seroff: One of the great benefits of giving in to the charms of the Tricky/The-Dream monster is that you can unabashedly embrace even the most shameless product-placement jingle as long as the beat is on time, the synth bass is fuzzy and the horns are up front. The merchandise being hawked here is not so much the eponymous $800 Christian Louboutin pumps as the rapidly aging J-Lo brand. 1999’s Ms. Billion-Dollar Booty is still strutting and fretting for all she’s worth, and if the returns are diminishing, at least they’re still very much there… though I’ll be damned if this doesn’t sound like her last legit club hurrah before the adult contemporary forties beckon. Show a little respect and salute, boys; that booty is at half mast.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: There was something on the local CBS-affiliate 10 o’clock news after the Grammys about her “comeback”, which mostly proves how little attention anyone is paying anymore, since Lopez hasn’t hit the Hot 100 in three years. If this flat-stomping fizz about her shoes changes that, it still won’t be enough: it’s like a flyer for a party that ended years ago, occupying its space with no flair whatsoever.
[3]

Anthony Easton: That sheer black body suit with gold spangles that she wore during the CNN New Year’s was the best aesthetic moment from J Lo in half a decade; I am hoping for more costumes, because this autotuned train wreck is not nearly as interesting as what she chooses to wear.
[5]

Doug Robertson: Well done. She can put on your shoes all by herself. I look forward to her next single where she describes how she can get all the toggles on her duffel coat done up with only the bare minimum of help from the classroom assistant.
[4]

Kat Stevens: I can’t quite work out the logic behind this wronged-woman brass stomper. Jen is angry at a dude for not paying her enough attention; Jen also is angry with herself for putting up with him for so long. Fair enough. But as an international megastar, Jen is certainly rich enough to afford her own Louboutins (throw your heels up at me) and talented enough to be able to walk in them. So you’d think that either the chap would be aware that he was punching above his weight (and therefore wouldn’t be quite so neglectful of Jen) or she would have been outta there long before it got to the “stressing out on the phone” stage.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: This is a complete mess. J.Lo as R&B sassin’ spurned woman is pretty much the worst idea imaginable — she can’t manufacture a believably empathetic persona to save her life, and instead comes across as haughty and hectoring. The beat is lifeless, the synth fanfare is cheap and tinny and the chorus is so dully repetitive it’s hard to believe Ryan Tedder wasn’t involved. Louboutins on or not, Lopez can’t walk the walk and make me believe she’s better than this situation. She couldn’t sell a hook even if this song had one (it doesn’t).
[2]

Ian Mathers: I’m not sure why Lopez feels the need to spend the first 30 seconds here repeating the same not very interesting line over and over ad nauseum, but it’s far from the only misstep here. Weirdly enough, the part where she sings “part time lover” reminds me every time of Chromeo’s far superior “Bonafied Lovin’,” and that just makes me even more eager to stop listening to her singing about her shoes. Maybe the production would be compelling with someone else, but I can’t tell with all the robo-Lopez (the singer here doesn’t sound like she’s ever felt anything recognizable as an emotion, and I don’t mean that in a good way) slathered around. There’s about three things here that think they’re hooks, but none of them come close to sinking in.
[2]

Al Shipley: Pop’s least chameleonic hitmaker handing out a particularly weak and transparent piece of The-Dream karaoke, but at least he handed it to someone whose career is already dead.
[2]

Matt Cibula: At the risk of pissing off Al Shipley, I will say that this grade proves that I’m not a The-Dream stan. It might, however, mean that I am a no-fun nerd who hates campy dance tracks; in my defense, I think J.Lo sucks every ounce of fun out of every track I’ve ever heard her do, so no surprises there.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: While I’m on the record as a fan of both dissonant angry pop music and Jennifer Lopez, the two of them just aren’t a good match. The pulsing beat in the background sounds like an alarm siren at an industrial plant and the horn line is shrill where it should triumphantly announce the return of Lopez. Beyonce’s B’Day was an entire album that treated material consumption, self-sufficiency and status symbols as solutions to the problem of cretinous, unfaithful men, and “Ring the Alarm” or “Freakum Dress” are infinitely better examples of both how to dominate this sort of beat and how to tell off unworthy suitors.
[6]

Additional Scores

Pete Baran: [4]
Martin Skidmore: [6]
Alfred Soto: [2]

They’re not going to wash themselves, are they?…

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[6.00]

Alex Ostroff: I overrated the first single from this album, valuing the beat and the production and Drake more than the damage it inflicted on Mary’s voice via obnoxious Autotune meddling. It took about 15 seconds into “I Am” before I realized how woefully wrong I had been. The production isn’t anything special — Stargate-by-the-numbers, mostly. The message isn’t particularly inspiring — an attempt to prevent infidelity by insisting that “I’m the best you can get.” But the sheer power of Blige to emote is staggering. There’s a depth of feeling in the grain and nuance of her voice that few people can match.
[8]

Anthony Easton: Birdsongs, water lapping across stones, melodramatic strings, her immaculate voice, and the unadulterated ego; she is one with the universe.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: Like a lot of hers, I sort of admire its quality without at any point being excited or moved. There seems no ambition in this beyond just getting another single out.
[4]

Michaelangelo Matos: Pretty good for autopilot — meaning for Mary, period, these days. Auto-Tune treats her better than I’d have expected, maybe because here it’s frosting rather than the cake, but probably more because the song is friskier than her norm these days.
[5]

John Seroff: I’ll always have a soft spot for Blige; 411 and My Life will forever bring out a smile. Lately though, her “I’m gonna make it” inspirational ballads have dipped into the insipid; “I Am” is musically flat and glaringly lyrically bland. The verve and hurt on display as recently as ’07’s Growing Pains is missing here; I hope this is a sign that maybe Mary’s finally worked out some of that drama? Good for her; not so good for us.
[3]

Alfred Soto: As Mary J gets older, she yields more readily to her weakness for psychobabble, which for a while has served her commercially as her claque ages too. Don’t tell her younger fans though, for whom the underrated Growing Pains and The Breakthrough sound stodgy and long-winded, despite the best songwriting-for-hire of Ne-Yo’s career (maybe The-Dream too). Meanwhile a stuttering string sample rattles the chordal debt to Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together,” while her voice — reliant on its high end now that she’s safer with generalities — cuts like a hot knife through a stack of Keyshia Cole CDs. It’s no “Stay Down” or “Be Without You,” but it’ll do.
[6]

Kat Stevens: Mary seems to be grabbing wildly at each word and the production seems to have been beefed up to compete with her, almost ruining the lovely melody. It’s not bad at all, but the last thirty seconds of ‘oh-oh-oh’s would definitely work an octave higher AHEM should have given it to Mariah COUGH.
[7]

Matt Cibula: This would be my 17th-favorite Mariah Carey song if it was really by Mariah Carey.
[5]

Martin Kavka: The lover-please-stay lyric is usually a last gasp, spoken when the jig is up and the bags are packed. But for Mary, “nobody’s going to treat you as good as I am” going to treat you in the future after you’ve realized what an idiot you have to be to leave me. The end of this argument is fated. You’re staying, and I’ve just dashed off a neat little song about your lame little ass while you made the most obvious decision of your life. You are soooooo my bitch.
[8]

Al Shipley: It’s bubbly and kind of irresistible, even as prim and bland as it seems at first. But as ridiculous as it is to critique R&B on grammar, it just drives me nuts how the chorus would make so much more sense if every phrase ended with “I will” or “I do” instead.
[6]

Note to our writers: Newcastle isn’t in Scotland…

[Video][Website]
[5.62]

Pete Baran: The song title suggests a knockabout Adam Sandler film, but the casting changes as soon as the song starts. Instead we find ourselves in a film that could be cut from a Scottish miserablism cloth, except it is a touch too knowing. The Unthanks come on like the folk Delgados here, with the kind of narrative power that the first minute of chanting our lead character’s name belies. By the time the choir hit the “Not so Lucky” I was sold on it: compelling, funny and musically angular enough to take it out of the folk box and mark it for crossover. It’ll need an audience ready for it, but I think there might be one out there. I just hope the film doesn’t star Ewan MacGregor.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: The rather classical string playing is good, but the song is so awkward, and the vocals so weak that I can find no pleasure in this at all.
[2]

Alex Ostroff: There’s a lot of talent here, both among the vocalists, the string section and the touches of swinging jazz piano. Unfortunately, the compromise ends up neither funky enough to catch my ears, nor folky enough to catch my heart.
[4]

Doug Robertson: The vocals highlight their folky inclinations, but other than that there’s little here to tie it to the beard and scrumpy stereotype that’s attached to the genre like dead voles to an electric fence, and even then the multilayered voices wouldn’t exactly be considered to be harmonised. Instead it’s all soaring piano plinks and plonks, a slight air of menace, and a struggle to define exactly what it is that makes this track so special. Sometimes, much like with a puppy, picking it apart to try and find out why it works is just a really bad idea.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: Tricky-timed piano, strings, airy harmonies, weirdly caught between trad and daring, quite beguiling: a Geordie Roches (two of ’em, Unthank is their real surname) singing folksong co-arranged by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Chic. There are dozens of artists that should become instantly jealous. Just don’t watch them on Jools Holland because it’ll break the spell: turns out they, ugh, clog dance.
[6]

Matt Cibula: Just when they were about to make me like them with cascading waves of dippy folky loveliness, out come the tap shoes and it’s Tilly and the Wall all over again.
[3]

John Seroff: Honeyed but never cloying, lush but not overwrought, gentle but not twee, precious but not overly mannered. An endearing theme for a musical I wouldn’t mind seeing.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Memory is a tricky thing, but as far as mine can tell this song is pitched halfway between what I remember the Unthanks (back when it was Rachel Unthank and the somethings) sounding like and, I don’t know, Field Music or something. It drifts too much to really hold the attention, but if you cut it down to maybe three minutes focusing on the strangely layered group vocals it’d be compellingly odd. As it is, there’s a ton of potential here and I’m curious to hear what else they’re doing with this sound, but I’m not feeling the urge to listen to this particular song again.
[6]