It’s Andrew Marr’s favourite…

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[6.67]

Anthony Easton: After two years or so of British women playing weird, the snake goddess of Anglo-pop returns, and we are all thankful.
[10]

Martin Skidmore: There are hardly any indie acts of the last 20 years that I’ve had more time for than her, but those that know my tastes know that isn’t saying so much. I don’t want to be too grudging, as there is a Patti Smith/Nick Cave force and class here rare in modern rock, but in all honesty this one does little for me.
[5]

Kat Stevens: She still sounds like a mad old cat lady to me, but I’m a sucker for anything with a tuba on it, especially when it references Summertime Blues.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The only false start that’s worked in the last twenty years is the one in Eurythmics’ “I Need You,” so I was prepared to dismiss the rest of the song. It sounds tentative and “interesting” — a promising first track rather than single. “I’ve seen soldiers falling like meat,” Polly Jean coos over acoustic strums so thick she could be cutting through meat. Then a stranded male voice, mistaking this for a White Stripes number, asks “What if I take my problem to the Ewe-nited Nations?” as in the background an electric guitar picks higher and higher notes. Ah, the blues — just a template for idiosyncrasy.
[8]

Zach Lyon: When America invaded Iraq, I had this very young, irrational thought of “Well, at least we’ll get a pile of great new anti-war songs!” There were two that didn’t suck completely — Tom Waits’ “Day After Tomorrow”, a personal, specific story about a soldier that will never fail to make me cry, and Josh Ritter’s “Thin Blue Flame,” a vague and hazy epic whose often-sophomoric observations are overcome by magnificent writing. “The Words That Maketh Murder” falls somewhere between too vague (in its narrative and point) and too specific (just loading your song with gratuitous imagery does not make it moving). “I’ve seen and done things I want to forget/I’ve seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat/blown and shot out beyond belief/arms and legs were in the trees”: this is how not to write an anti-war song in 2011. Or you just don’t do it at all; this isn’t the era for it.
[3]

Josh Langhoff: It’s a stinky lump of something: brassy stomp, poker-faced background singers, autoharp interlude and deliberately unattractive voice. There’s some stuff here that annoys me, namely the King James “maketh” and the umpteen repetitions of Eddie Cochrane’s “United Nations” line. But after a while they simply become parts of the song’s indelible character, like undesirable traits in a person you otherwise enjoy spending time with. In this case, said person’s a veteran who talks about war in a manner so unadorned you can feel the heft of the bodies falling like lumps of meat, you can smell the flesh quivering in the heat, summertime blues adopting grisly implications. Our veteran is pretty jaunty about the whole experience, which may be a coping mechanism, or may just be the resignation borne of countless hours spent grappling with a series of life-altering visions. This song is uncannily close to certain conversations with a Vietnam vet friend of mine; I’ll bet he’s gonna love it.
[8]

Josh Love: Starts off very promisingly, Harvey sounding in thrall to her visceral lyrics over a hypnotic thrum, but the payoff is a dud – timid horns and an iteration of the song’s title that might’ve aimed for fervent incantation but ends up being about as spooky as the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ “Hell.” I would’ve even tolerated the strange lyrical nick of “Summertime Blues” at the end if the song hadn’t long since gone off the rails.
[5]

Iain Mew: I love the deep, dark groove this quickly sinks into, the way it hangs between being a waltz and a march and the way that the sharp vocals cut straight through it. I’m much less carried away by the song aside from the sonics, but those are enough.
[7]

John Seroff: Shambling, nursery-rhyme clatter and bang that evokes Tom Waits or Elvis Costello, “The Words That Maketh Murder” reeks of that old, dirty rocknroll. More is less has always worked awful damn well for Polly Jean and here is no exception.
[7]

You ever get that feeling when you think someone’s trying to send you a message, but you can’t quite figure out what it is?…

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[5.85]

Pete Baran: “All my life I’ve been good” — well, there is that track from the Alice In Wonderland 3D soundtrack as exhibit A against this… but let us forget that, because I have always had a soft-spot for Avril’s more upbeat numbers. It is very by the numbers, the sound of five years ago’s teen rebellion heading back to an audience who has probably grown up and out of her.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: Review watching the video: Remember when the cool thing to do was to disparage Liz Phair for wanting to sound like Avril Lavigne? Funstyle was way more punk than this. [4] Review just listening to it: Sounds terrifically like a Stiff single ca. 1978, with Yachts organ, Rachel Sweet woah-oh-oahs, and Lene Lovich rhythms. Pity about the lyrics, but then it always was. [8] Conclusion:
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: Like watching a 26-year-old getting Botox.
[2]

Jer Fairall: This is too sad for me to even be all that annoyed with it.
[2]

Al Shipley: Life experience has taught me that 26 isn’t too old too pull off “bratty” convincingly, so I’m not shocked that I enjoy this almost as much as the songs from back when her persona fit her age. But I am a little surprised that the cheerleader chant cadence that so irritated me on “Girlfriend” doesn’t bother a bit here where it’s paired with a ’60s organ riff, a killer bassline and that instantly memorable ascending vocal hook.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: For her newest come back single, Lavigne channels… Mates of State? (For anyone who’s forgotten, that was the early ’00s version of Matt and Kim, except they wore clothes.) Blocky organ blasts are the only new thing here however; for the most part, this is Avril same as she ever was, proving little more than that with almost a decade under her belt, she’s never going to change. “All my life I’ve been good, but now…” proceeds the hook, and I half expected her to finish the thought with “…I’m dating a sk8er boi,” or “…I don’t like your girlfriend.” I suppose Lavigne hasn’t ever been this upfront about wanting to sleep around, even if she does deflect attention from the “I like messing in your bed” bridge with more prominent — and strangely coy — lyrics about “go[ing] out on a million dates.” A 26 year old divorcée who still sings about sex like a teenager has done all the growing up she ever will. It’s cute, I guess.
[6]

David Moore: This is an intensely obnoxious song, but then again I think this post-“Girlfriend” aggressive obnoxiousness suits my vision of what Avril really is far better than when she’s more unintentionally obnoxious. It basically comes down to whether or not the inevitable CAPSLOCK-POP migraine is mitigated by the melodies, and whether or not I add or subtract a point for the annoying grubby organ hook. It is, and I added one.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: That’s got to be the cheapest organ preset (or cheapest actual organ, but more likely the former) ever. And it’s the best thing about this song, because the ascending/descending oh-whoa might be the most annoying thing you’ll hear on radio this year.
[3]

Kat Stevens: The organ riff is so cheap it may well have been bought off Clint Boon at a jumble sale, but Avril continues to mine her nasty playground-taunting streak and I am glad. When she tries singing anything nice through that pointed nose and sharpened teeth it sounds all wrong. A part of me wonders what will happen to Avril’s career when she reaches middle-age, as sneering teenpop is surely an unsustainable long-term theme, (unlike, say, sneering post-punk or sneering rapping). Perhaps she won’t actually ever age at all? Who knows what philosopher’s stones might be lurking in Clint’s garage?
[7]

Martin Skidmore: A superbly catchy good girl gone bad song, and with a great shouty chorus and some almost garagey (the old rock kind) keyboards, this is almost as good as “Girlfriend”. It’s not terribly easy to buy Avril as someone who needs to bust loose, and she does sound a little too nasal on one or two early lines, but generally this is pretty irresistible.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The organ and bridge compensate for the business-as-usual chorus. If she’s confessing that all her life she’s been good, why proffer such well-behaved Avril-angst?
[6]

Josh Love: Avril’s already said the forthcoming album to which “What the Hell” will be awkwardly attached is going to be “mellow” and “deep,” so this might the last opportunity we have to say anything nice about our little mall-punk princess for quite some time. A tadpole couldn’t swim in Lavigne’s idea of depth, but she’s a goddamn genius when it comes to shouty, mean-girl choruses.
[7]

Zach Lyon: It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if every Avril single was just Girlfriend 2.0.
[8]

We have a new leader! Who be the first person in the comments box to say we’ve over-rated it? START THE CLOCK!…

[Video][Website]
[7.67]

Martin Skidmore: I’d have really liked to see this in that BBC list for 2011 rather than most of what was there. Her voice is a little weak on the higher notes, but otherwise there is a soulful force, backing with music that seems somewhere between Massive Attack working with Shara Nelson and modern R&B, with a dash of drum & bass energy in the beats (it’s produced by Shy FX) and some strong horns on the chorus. I found it captivating and very danceable, and I like it enormously.
[9]

Jer Fairall: Not unlike that Yuck song that only I liked, this amuses me as much for its canny evocation of a specific dawn-of-the-90s sound than anything particularly notable about the song itself. But when that sound is a snap-together pastiche of the Pet Shop Boys’ austere hum (maybe a bit more “West End Girls” than Behaviour, but still), the gaudy pan-ethnicism of a Wild Orchid soundtrack and the tactile clicks and loops of the era’s hip hop (complete with “Jump Around” squeal), — well, that just leaves me too giddily nostalgic to even notice how colourless the vocals are until about the fifth time through.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: Shy FX is producing chart R&B now, eh? The track certainly bears the marks of an old junglist: bish-bosh snare and cymbal, the latter ringing out throughout to create a kind of washing backdrop. As for Yasmin, she’s got a decent-enough voice and a less-decent-than-that song.
[6]

Josh Love: The “You’re gonna make it after all!” sentiment of this one could’ve easily been pure treacle, but the matter-of-fact, unromantic, downright mature way Yasmin chronicles the aspirations and doubts of a young striver ends up being genuinely affecting. “No one’s gonna pay my way…no one’s gonna do it for me,” she sings with knowing resolve, and you want her to make it after all, even if making it means “getting your exceptionally pretty face in a gauzy music video that seems wildly incongruous to the fairly dank bass and drums in your song.” Pity about sharing your name with a dodgy contraceptive too.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: You can get lost for hours in singles like this: a noisy beat and punchy brass samples to get your attention, and a melancholy backdrop to catch your senses. I’m swept away so completely I don’t notice the weaknesses, which are many; the melody, especially in the chorus, hits the exact points where Yasmin’s voice thins out, and the “make it on my own” conceit has borne too many songs already to support the last line. But then there’s a faraway murmur or an unexpected mood shift, and just like that I’m taken again.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: NOW THIS IS HOW YOU BONGO.
[8]

That’s a mighty big claim to make, mister…

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[5.40]

Alfred Soto: The most colorless and intermittently compelling voice in R&B and the most colorless and irredeemably boilerplate svengali in dance music. Irresistable.
[0]

Zach Lyon: The cliche that comes to mind is “guilty pleasure” but I really hate the implication that one should ever feel guilty about their pleasures (unless it’s, you know, serial killing or whatever) and that guilt would only sprout from the name “David Guetta,” despite the fact that this is obviously the best track to his name. And this sounds little like his streak of hacky BEPism, though it maintains what I think is the intended spirit of a lot of BEP tracks — that desire to make a song that works as well in the club as it would at a wedding reception. Or at a Bar Mitzvah in 2001, which is the era he seems to be aspiring to. The point is, this is Guetta The DJ, not Guetta The Producer Of Reliable Moneymakers. And we have Rihanna, well-utilized in her alternate universe role of house diva, which she works just as well. Her robotic range sounds at home backing a club track rather than dominating it, and probably necessitates the rather sugary voice-modulation in the chorus. And for once we have a great middle eight: “Ultrasexual/the night has got me lovesprung” might be my favorite lyric in a while, and then “My heart is a dancer/beating like a disco drum”, a worthy line if only because it takes the tired “My heart is a 808/jungle/______ drum” and adds a totally excessive metaphor on top of it. I might not agree with this a year from now, but right now it’s on repeat.
[9]

Jer Fairall: Robotized even more than usual, Rihanna’s insistence on nevertheless giving her vocal part an actual jolt of melodic range and forward momentum is commendable, but this is still another faceless David Guetta composition, only superior to “Sexy Bitch” or “Gettin’ Over” on the grounds that forgettable will always trump obnoxious when looking down the road at months of inevitable repetition.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: With Black Eyed Peas, Guetta’s contributions tone up the hopeless sap and/or relentless bad taste of his paymasters. With Kelis, a strong personality with sharp tastes kept his beats basic but powerful. On his own, he enlists Rihanna to leave behind the winking human being behind the robot guise, and she goes along because, hey, it’s his vision.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: Rihanna’s voice is sort of harsh in the first place, so I can really do without autotuning on her, which wastes what I like about her. The chorus, with some awful male vocals, is horrid, and I’ve had far too much of Guetta’s electro-house sounds in the last couple of years.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: David Guetta, realizing people have caught onto his releasing half-assed versions of the same song, tries something new: a half-assed version of a RedOne song, with the presets but none of the power. This includes the Rihanna preset; seldom has she sounded less engaged with her material. Hell, she even admits she doesn’t really care. Who’s that chick? Who cares?
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: I wouldn’t have expected Guetta to make Rihanna sound less strident than Stargate did, but who can keep all those French house guys straight anyway.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Still don’t think Rihanna tends to be appreciably lamer when sublimating her personality into mere danceclub anonymity; it’s not like I ever found her personality all that interesting in the first place. And I don’t doubt this is functional, for those who care about its function. I’m also glad they remembered to include the “k” in “chick.” Lots of people — even Kid Rock once! –don’t.
[4]

Kat Stevens: This sounds exactly like you’d expect but 10 x SUNNIER and I dunno about you but I need a bit of bloody sunshine this January.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: I like how Rihanna’s line “Sheeza been a crazy dita” cops the shape of “Quien es esa niña” from “Who’s That Girl?” It’s a nice touch, somehow allowing subtler, more mysterious, more Latina early Madonna to inhabit the same THUMP THUMP CLUB CLUB feel of recent Madonna fitness music. Also dig the pretty chords and funny electro voices that leaven all the thumping.
[7]

I always thought he was about five foot three. And 100 pounds. Hey, wait a second…

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[6.38]

Chuck Eddy: Insane ramblings — a few of which I can even half make sense out of — about charisma, lasagna, llamas, Dramamine, segregation, synchronized swimmers, pachyderm penises, and other things, running out the mouth of a guy who sounds like he’s been saving it all up. And with much help from Harry Belafonte’s banana boat, it all adds up to one high-pitched perpetual motion machine.
[8]

Al Shipley: In the nearly 3 years since “A Milli”, Wayne has been content to let virtually everyone in the world copy it without trying himself. Now the inevitable attempt at a sequel, with the song’s producer and original guest MC in tow, is finally here, it can’t help but underwhelm. But considering Wayne’s artistic trajectory of late, it could’ve been much worse.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: Producer Bangladesh gives Wayne another huge beat, his best since their last time together on “A Milli”, but for me the “Banana Boat” quotes really irritate. It’s a shame: it took me a while to come around to Wayne’s loose rapping style, but I’m feeling it these days, and he’s very sharp on this. Possibly being young at a time when countless people referenced that old song in irritating and often racist ways means it bothers me more than the many much younger reviewers here — without that, I think this would strike me as a monster single.
[8]

Jer Fairall: Though that Harry Belafonte sample is loaded with history, I take its particular presence here as a reference to Beetlejuice, with Wayne playing the anarchic cartoon villain spinning his rococo funhouse projections for nothing more than his own demented, cackling amusement. The titular chorus locked into forced repetition by his possessed victims, he is freshly free to run amok once again, the chaos and absurdity he unleashes nevertheless dictated by his own perverse sense of internal logic, hence “I got through that sentence with a subject and a predicate.” Only the Cory Gunz verse is unnecessary. The best otherworldly pests all work alone.
[8]

Asher Steinberg: Basically Wayne’s first good rapping in a couple years; but marred by his weird, constipated voice, the annoying “Milli”-imitating sample and a seriously confused Cory Gunz, it fails to be anything more than a decent technical showcase.
[4]

Zach Lyon: It’s usually something of a delight listening closely to Weezy’s verses and unfolding each line. Also good? Interesting samples. You know what ruins it? When you take both of those elements and smash them together so violently that it all ends up as incomprehensible mush. Much respect for the individuals who can weather this without getting a headache.
[3]

Jonathan Bradley: After an ill-advised guitar album, a run of Autotune hits that had one of Autotune’s best ambassadors making the effect look as if it deserved the bad press, a succession of increasingly lazy rhymes, and then a prison sentence that seemed to bear out Weezy’s rambled critique of the US justice system at the end of The Carter III -— both for its uneven racial impact and because the speech was delivered while Wayne was clearly off his head on the same substance that got him put away — “6’7′” is a model for wiping clean the most soiled slate. This is Dwayne Carter in form as Mr. Peyton Manning flow (“I just go; no huddle”), walloping the “Banana Boat” beat with a torrent of off-the-wall wordplay, hashtagging par excellence (“two bitches at the same time, #SynchronizedSwimmers”)logic-defying similes (particularly the famed silent lasagna), and the same addled charisma that first won him our hearts. The F, if we might ever have doubted, truly is for phenomenal.
[9]

Alfred Soto: Best Wayne moment in months, and Cory Gunz keeps up. Slinging lines “Sleep is the cousin” over bass and percussive loop closer to garage than hip-hop, the two disappear into their own heads without going up their own asses.
[7]

Is it just me that looks at this and thinks of Tracy Jordan and Liz Lemon trying to out-laugh each other?…

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[4.11]

Anthony Easton: Well it is hella less creepy then the last one, and her voice maintains some twinge of twang, which is nice, and the studio is used to full effect, and yet, it’s straight down the middle — how can a song about heartbreak and wanting things to be right have this little emotion?
[4]

Mallory O’Donnell: Remember when country breakup songs actually made you feel low-down and miserable? Between this and the Sara Evans, I get the feeling that Nashville heartbreak merchants are getting a little bit too well-adjusted to do us any good. Where have all the bad times gone?
[3]

Alfred Soto: No, it won’t be alright again — not with those clichés. The “little miss” refrain does all the work for them.
[3]

Jonathan Bradley: Jennifer Nettles’ voice has that special swelling quality that suits perfectly these kind of generous, restorative tunes. “Little Miss Big Ol’ Heart beats open” is a touch sentimental, but only because it spells out the rousing warmth Sugarland usually just smuggles into its tracks. I’m more than happy for this to stick around on radio for a while yet.
[6]

Martin Skidmore: I really don’t care for the lower of the two female voices here, which sounds rather flat to me, musically and emotionally. The song rather plods along too, with incomprehensibly vague lyrics, pleasant as its tune sometimes is.
[4]

Zach Lyon: Apparently losing the other girl has made Sugarland sound like Reba + faint male backup vocals. Only sonically, though, as I’m not sure Reba these days would ever release something this lyrically interesting or limiting. The verses are so good, moving and filled with real compassion despite my having no idea if it’s about a daughter, sister, friend, other girl from Sugarland, herself etc. Clearly someone worth the song, though, given her delivery and the amount of standout lines to quote. Unfortunate that it’s all momentum leading to a minuscule chorus that almost isn’t there. They try to make up for it with a bombastic middle eight, which isn’t doing the song any favors. This’ll be mired in the frustrating “could’ve been so much better” purgatory for me for a long time.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: This seems to further Sugarland’s long sad slide into sounding like big fat nothingness — my wife suggests, “It sounds like generic Christian rock,” while I’m leaning more towards Melissa Etheridge. I’m trying to think of another band that started off bursting with so much life, only to wind up singing empty assurances to adult contemporary radio. Bon Jovi?
[1]

Jer Fairall: Sweet and understated musically; empathetic and a little too understated lyrically. I feel their compassion for their subject, and appreciate that Jennifer Nettles’ husky yet plainspoken vocals never seem to be shouting, condescendingly, on high to its subject in the way that someone like Carrie Underwood might, but whoever this Little Miss is, she is so thinly and vaguely defined by the words being addressed to her that it is difficult to be as moved by the sentiment as I’m sure we’re meant to. Odd that I would be requesting more exposition from country lyrics, I suppose, but this is one that could have actually benefitted from a little more intimate detail even if what we risked learning about the character turned out to be nothing new.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Believe it or not, when I reviewed The Incredible Machine, I actually singled this fatigued mediocrity out as both a standout cut and the CD’s most country-sounding track. Maybe I was wrong; more likely, the album’s even worse than I thought. Either way, this now hits me as bad Lady Antebellum with hints of Bruce Hornsby piano. Which admittedly does beat bad Brit-pop.
[3]

Ha-va, nagila, haa-vaa, nagila…

[Video][Website]
[4.50]

Asher Steinberg: When one washed-up super-rapper collaborates with another super-rapper who was never a very good rapper in the first place, one of three things can happen. They can go the bloated event record noise pollution route, a la “Swagger Like Us”, “Empire State of Mind”, or “Black Republican”. The washed-up one can dully attempt to rap over a poor facsimile of a beat he could have gotten 15 years ago. Or, they can amuse with awkward attempts to rap like the rappers of today, sort of like Obama’s ludicrous boasts of “doing BIG THANGZ” the other night. Kanye and Jay have chosen the latter route, and while the result is supremely inessential, they’ve spared us a lot of noise pollution.
[4]

Al Shipley: Nearly a decade after he began collaborating with Twista, Kanye’s misbegotten confidence as a rapper has finally allowed him to attempt a doubletime flow, and it’s just the marvel of incompetence you’d expect. Jay’s always been capable in that department, but his verse here only sounds good compared to Kanye’s, not compared to “Jigga What, Jigga Who”.
[2]

Jer Fairall: Even as a non-fan of Kanye’s rapping in general, I think he sounds fucking terrible here, right at home in a pompous production that punches the listener in the face with each graceless operatic flourish and plodding synth-stab. Jay Z comes off somewhat better only by virtue of not being as awful as his partner, but this is the very sound of two guys who can currently phone it in with no fear of their reputations taking any significant hit, and thus proceeding to do just that. Infuriating.
[1]

Jonathan Bradley: “Watch the throne,” as someone should have told King Louis XVI. “H.A.M.” doesn’t; Lex Luger’s beat starts out menacing and eerie, but descends into a monarchical crescendo with all the fatuous opulence of the Palace of Versailles. Waka Flocka Flame might have been able to batter this monstrosity into submission, but ‘Ye and Jay are too complacent and too controlled to really wile out. “Comme des Garçons/Fuck your fresh,” raps Hov at one point. Non, mon frère, comme de fille; specifically, Marie Antoinette.
[4]

Michaelangelo Matos: Let me guess, I’m supposed to be overwhelmed by the ambition, right? Ooh: opera. Very fancy. I bow, I bow.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The hardness or the butchness here is as performative as panto or kabuki. We are supposed to be convinced that they are fighting each other for control of the business, but both have been soft and self reflective enough in previous work that you really enjoy the excess. Nothing is new, and everything has already been permitted.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: The rather tinny production from Lex Luger seemed disappointing, but then it goes all Adam F orchestral-choral on the chorus, which is much more impressive. Weirdly, Jay-Z, one of the most naturally gifted rappers ever, leans rather towards almost singing many of his lines, which is a mad choice. Kanye sounds stronger than usual, but I’ve never cared about his rapping. A mixed bag – half a terrific single, half a weak one.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The last thing Ye needs in 2011 is to go ham. When the arrangement swells to encompass operatic voices and piano, I know he and Hova realized they have nothing of interest to say but have gotten more resourceful about hiding it.
[4]

In case you’re wondering, 2011’s sidebar top ten will begin when 10 songs score more than 7. This may take a while…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.71]

Zach Lyon: In which Frank Kogan’s comment from almost a year ago proves to be almost creepily OTM.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Trance-dance of unusually delectable (if nonetheless in-one-ear-out-the-other) liquidity, and I’m guessing the apparently female vocal isn’t Dennis’s, but I’m too lazy to investigate further. Also, I keep hearing “red room” as “redrum” — as in, “murder” backwards.
[6]

Alex Macpherson: When a trick is as effective the second time round, why change it? “The Red Room” is, to all intents and purposes, “Hey Hey” part two: again, a punkier-than-expected vocalist does her thing over clattering, climaxing beats. Dawn Hulton sounds possessed more by demons than love, though, and the way in which she twists against the beat builds constantly up to the entrance, four minutes in, of a demented one-note organ that takes over as she fades away into echoes.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: I definitely prefer it to “Hey Hey,” which I found catchy-annoying rather than plain old catchy. “The Red Room” is darker, more acidic (love that slow-rising 303), and spiky, thanks to Dawn Hulton’s icy singing.
[7]

Mallory O’Donnell: OK, this is pretty damn solid. The beats are pleasantly thwacky, there’s actually a little bit of progression — well, atmosphere change at any rate. But, yes, the vocal really is as reminiscent of you-know-who as everyone’s saying. Still, definitely a big improvement over last year’s puzzlingly successful “Hey Hey.”
[7]

Martin Skidmore: Some Latin bongo rhythms start us off, and it feels like it takes a while to really get going, but in due course we get some heavily echoing vocals and building beats and synths. I like the way the music grows, but the female vocal sounds really awkward. Music good, needs better singing.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I think this song would be better with actual bongos.
[5]

Not one mention of that thing she did with Reba McEntire? Slipping…

[Video][Website]
[5.43]

Alfred Soto: Not with voices this blank.
[3]

Al Shipley: If this signals that Kelly is finally going for the inevitable, commercially shrewd move toward country, then good for her, she sounds fantastic doing this kind of stuff.
[7]

Anthony Easton: I am glad that Clarkson is doing country, and Aldean is basically a rock star who happens to be working from Nashville, so the chocolate/peanut butter southern rock/chart country has strong potential here, and it almost makes it — a little too over the top, maybe, but the piano and the vocal bombast make it a power ballad almost as good as “November Rain”.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Before Carrie Underwood galloped away with the American Idol crown, country on the show was a complete nonentity unless it was a punchline like Josh Gracin’s Procrustean-twanged “Jive Talkin’“. It’s still basically a niche now; Underwood might be Idol’s big country discovery, but Kelly Clarkson’s still the show’s big discovery, period. So it’s really strange to hear her on what’s basically a Carrie track. The song’s gorgeous, mind you, all wind sweep and moody harmonies. Kelly sings it beautifully, Jason manages not to mess it up and the two sound surprisingly nice together. But between this and the stapled smile of All I Ever Wanted, Kelly seems like she’s flailing, grasping at anything to retain a front-runner title she hasn’t even lost. All this is a roundabout way of saying I want My December back. Please?
[6]

Zach Lyon: I like this — how many country singles do we hear about the beginnings of a relationship? The problem is with Kelly, who seems to have a great country voice in the chorus but just craps all over her verse. Duets shouldn’t be about outdoing each other (unless that’s the point, in which case it still shouldn’t actually be the point) but she insists on reminding us that she’s still a pop diva. When it comes to the part in the melody where Aldean goes down (“feels like this“), she just has to go up (“it’s a sad goodBAAAA-EEEE-AAAA-EEEE-AAA“) and then we lose the prettiest progression in the whole song. Regardless, it’s still a good post-“Need You Now” ballad.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: I’m probably the only Jukebox contributor who’s had more use for Jason than for Kelly over the past half-decade or so. But I mainly have a use for him when he’s got hard rock riffs attached. And come to think of it, Kelly’s best rocking out, too — so this competently generic power ballad duet spells a major missed opportunity.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: There’s almost nothing here that wouldn’t have bored me 25 years ago.
[3]

NO. FUCKING. APOSTROPHE.

[Video][Website]
[2.50]

Michaelangelo Matos: England Dan and John Ford Coley is BACK!
[4]

Zach Lyon: Yeah, I guess it’s about time for the Plain White Ts to write their Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies commercial jingle.
[3]

Jer Fairall: Not only does this out-wuss “Hey There Delilah”, this actually out-wusses Jason Mraz.
[2]

Chuck Eddy: Have we reached a point where emo-pop, diet ska, and John Mayer have all merged into one melting bowl of vanilla ice cream? Seems like it. Still, this is pleasant. And I even kind of like that bell-like harmony break two-thirds of the way in.
[3]

Anthony Easton: He is playing this softly in the background to convince himself that it is a seduction rather than anything nefarious. When they awake, he will make pancakes and play Jack Johnson, to convince her that everything is alright.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: A Caribbean acoustic number, strumming along in a relaxed way, though they can’t resist some drums thudding in in unwelcome ways in parts. I’m sure it will sound sweet to some, but it sounds limp and saccharine to me.
[3]

Alfred Soto: More rhythm, less love.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: We get one of these a year, it seems: dippy reveries for sensitive souls scared of all the sex and technology and minor keys on the charts, to whom Train is too flirty and Bruno too much, who just want love and ukeleles and cute unthreatening boys. Points awarded solely for mentioning neither pillow-flipping nor “I’m so gangsta, I’m so thug.”
[2]