Remember when all he wanted was total chaos and a holiday home in the east? Well…

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[7.91]

Anthony Easton: I love this. I cannot even tell you why. It’s swoony, romantic, horribly lovely: sort of Pet Shop Boys doing a soundtrack to a reboot of Brideshead Revisited, but without the edge. That should sound horrible, but it’s amazing and wonderful and unjustifiable.
[10]

W.B. Swygart: Oh fuck. How dare you hit my buttons this squarely, you cunt. You fucker. Making me think about how “The Whole of the Moon” is awesome just for its fucking size, which is fine, because it’s enormous. You utter shit, Patrick. You fucking nob-end. I want to hug somebody and waltz slowly across floorboards and celebrate the music of my childhood – Semisonic, the Connells, “Linger” and absolutely no other song by the Cranberries. Bellow this fucking chorus. Be this happy. Be this relieved. Be this sure. Feel this comfortable. This song is wonderful even if I think the first time I heard it was on the in-store radio at the supermarket, which, as with all songs on said medium, made me feel a bit stabby. Now, tonight, I’m delighted that someone else gets it too, and I feel like putting this song on headphones and crying while listening to it on public transport. You fucking bastard.
[8]

Michaela Drapes: Patrick Wolf previously painted unbridled lust and growing pains and anger and heartbreak with the boldest brushes possible; it shouldn’t be so mind-boggling that he’s pulled the grandest weapons out of his arsenal to sing about the restorative powers of true love. In the opening moments of the song, a few seconds of slightly sinister synths echo previous angst but quickly slip away to a twining, organic arrangement of New Romantic-ish bombastic strings, sprightly guitars, and splashy drums. The thing that makes me happiest here, though, is that Wolf is finally taking his voice — that massive and wonderful thing –out for a showoff-y run spanning husky whispers to soaring, unreal yawps. I realize that all the sappy lyrics might make those allergic to sentimentality mightily ill, but I am completely helpless against the charms of this new, happy version of Wolf — and for his sake, I hope it lasts.
[10]

Edward Okulicz: The piano melody could basically be ABBA, which is why Patrick Wolf’s unique tremble of a voice is initially slightly jarring on top of it. But his is a rich emotional palate; when he sings he loves something, his voice quivers a little more over the words. He also breaks into a surer croon on the magnificently soaring chorus. And not one piece of the arrangement is gratuitous or superfluous – the strings in particular are sweet, not saccharine. In fact, where The Magic Position seemed forced on its happier numbers, here Wolf wears the contentment well. Lupercalia is stuffed full of songs whose one-two punches of emotion can catch you off-guard, and this is its most gorgeous.
[9]

B Michael Payne: Patrick Wolf has a proper single? Good for him! “House” is perfectly pleasant. Its very first opening moments recall Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” which tuned my expectations in such a way as for them to be defied. This is not a pop banger. It is a perfectly fine, slightly MOR, single. While I can’t really place it among Wolf’s best songs, it may serve to get more fans into the Patrick Wolf camp.
[6]

Alfred Soto: After years of earnest electro tinkle. Wolf swipes an ABBA piano line and records a full-throated ballad. Other than the vocal similarities to the guy from OMD attempting Luther’s version of “A House is Not a Home,” he sounds fetching.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: I bought a ticket to the world, but now I’ve come back again. (Hi, guys!)
[5]

Zach Lyon: I like this for its personality more than its sound or musicality, strictly as a distillation of comfort, peace (obv) and what sounds like a very genuine love.
[7]

Iain Mew: Patrick has always had a way with writing grand, sweeping songs which hit with an elemental force but are still believably intimate and personal. For his second go on a major label he’s dropped some of the more ornate detailing and written some comparably straightforward love songs, but this could still be no one else. There’s a great deal of sophistication and thought in to its hymn to the possibilities brought about by the security of a relationship, but more important is the heart-on-sleeve urgency with which he sings it: never has contented domesticity sounded so bloody exciting.
[9]

Jonathan Bogart: Lovely, galloping, straining to soar but earthbound in the best possible sense (earth is really great yo). I’m almost ashamed that I just don’t get any emotion from it; its pleasures are strictly sonic, strictly understood.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: I’ll admit at the outset that it is completely impossible for me to be remotely objective about Patrick Wolf. His music is interwoven with the past seven years of my life, having acted as balm, inspiration, steel and spine at various points in time. The feral teenager of uncertain and volatile desires of Lycanthropy was everything I wouldn’t or couldn’t dare to be in high school; the pastoral static electricity of Wind in the Wires was a calm escape from the harsh realities of my parents’ divorce; and the (apologies, Patrick) flamboyant and ambiguously queer pop of The Magic Position gave me an early role model when preparing to come out. Even my attempts to sort through my post-closet post-graduation identity were soundtracked by his frustration and depression on The Bachelor. All of which is to say that some people may listen to “House” and hear Radio 2 marmite, deliberately designed for contentment and pleasantness and mothers and Tesco, and some might hear selling out and growing up and abandoning his roots. But I hear sweeping strings (impeccably arranged, as always), and the resolution of a journey that started with Lycanthropy. Our hero has run run run as fast as he can with his bedroom-built theremin, away from home, school, sexuality, and the Childcatcher. He’s run to Paris to start it all again, to lighthouses in search of identity, to cut his penis off and let no foot mark his ground. He’s wandered through the British countryside with a green tent and a violin, gotten lost and enchanted with platonic artistic loves in secret gardens, lost himself in danger and dead meat in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin. And now, finally, he has ventured back to the city, full circle, having learned how to battle and how to be conquered, and finally decides to lay down his weapons in armistice, to look to the future and mark time and ground together with someone else, to build houses and homes.
[10]

We live in a lovely world where Girls Aloud and Slipknot fit within the same parenthesis…

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[6.60]

W.B. Swygart: This is fucking magic. It sounds like playing squash inside a tetrahedron – everything bounces back but never quite at the angle you’re expecting. It’s hook upon hook upon hook – remember how that was the thing in pop at some point, how it’d be bamboozling you with all the great ideas at once so you’d have to sit down and pick them all out and it felt tremendous to do this (I’m possibly solely thinking of Girls Aloud’s “Biology” – and Slipknot’s “Duality” – rather than this being an actual movement or anything)? Well, this is that. Celia ain’t in love, she’s in la-la-la-love. It stutters and glitches everywhere, with surprises and kinks at every turn. It’s sort of like “Beat of My Drum” in a sense, cos when it gets its claws in it pretty much swallows you whole, and when it ends you’re a bit surprised everything’s back to normal. It’s bloody great.
[9]

Hazel Robinson: Oh, this is SPIFFING! I thought it might be slightly cheap eurotrance in the style of Inna; it is slightly cheap and almost certainly eurosomething, Balearic guitars and plucky little filter beat but when you get those in the right combination it’s pure bliss. It’s even got a little middle eight breakdown and there’s an odd hoedown element bubbling under all the way through; sort of like what the Star Wars cantina band would make if commissioned to write for Eurovision.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: I’d love to dance to this, god, I’d love to find somewhere outside of Romania that plays this, even though when I tried in my living room it was so deceptively fast. The beats skitter and Celia commands above them even though her voice is barely above a breathy coo. The overall effect is effortlessly kinetic.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: I love the pitter-patter staccato that overtakes Celia’s voice and the way the beat sounds like a fritzing ice maker playing a folk dance. Then she glides cirrus-smooth high above it all, and it’s impossibly gorgeous.
[8]

Iain Mew: Not sure that the stuttering motif needs to be quite so all over this, but the intricate beat holds it all together even though the ideas start to become a bit of a pile-up and her “l-l-lovely” is just that.
[7]

B Michael Payne: When you say “computer music,” some brand of IDM or techno music may come to mind. But this song sounds like the coming robot rebellion. I can picture it blaring from speakers as the computers and machines stomp over the skulls of the fallen humans.
[2]

Michaela Drapes: A charming pop confection, the kind that can only come out of the wilds of Eastern Europe. The folksy guitar (or is that a kobza?), in particular, is really, really well-used in the mix. I honestly don’t care who’s singing, or what about — I just want to dance, which is obviously the point. And, I admit, this has made me want to dig deeper into producer Costi Ionita’s back catalog — please excuse me if I listen to nothing but Balkan pop for the next few weeks.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: I’m not much of a fan of Spanish guitar, live or processed, but I’ll take the latter treatment when it’s attached to a rather fetchingly disembodied pop-club tune. Emphasis on tune, one that’s cut and pasted as much as the six-string.
[7]

Zach Lyon: This requires a good speaker system. Wasn’t until I put it on in my car that I realized how utterly MASSIVE it sounds. It’s like a dance recital featuring elephants and little Spanish-guitar-playing mice. Or something.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: Should I assume that “D-D-Down” has the same baffling sort of appeal as “We No Speak Americano” did, except this time with bonus lyrics and flamenco guitar Nintendo fusion?
[4]

The Queen of the Jukebox’s crown slips ever so slightly…

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[6.36]

Al Shipley: I always felt like Swift’s attempts at folksy girl next door narratives felt xeroxed from cheesy rom coms, so it’s nice of her to spell it out by cribbing a title from a Rob Reiner flick (and not even one of the good ones — minor Reiner!). And don’t even get me started on those spoken word announcements.
[3]

Pete Baran: There is something off here, it should work well, another Taylor Swift relationship fumbling country rocker. She can shit this stuff out in her sleep (she shouldn’t, but I reckon she can). And yet I am starting to worry if she is protesting too much; her made-up tragedies lose their lustre particularly over the relentlessly upbeat backing. But then I realise the real problem. Never ever name your songs over failed Rob Reiner films, particularly ones where Bruce Willis tries to do a bit of acting.
[5]

Isabel Cole: Vocals that are sweet without being simpering race through a melody that (with the exception of a dull middle eight) twists and settles in all the right places, while a few key inflections — the sardonic squeak on “lucky,” the plaintive fade on “should’ve held me,” the pleading catch on “pretending” — add a layer of further interest to a solid piece of high-energy pop. If I liked all Taylor Swift songs this much, I’d be a Taylor Swift fan.
[9]

Edward Okulicz: It wasn’t what I was expecting, but Taylor Swift has managed to put out the best Veronicas single ever. The chorus is as good an example of power pop as you’re likely to hear on the radio. As good as that is, maybe that’s all it is – as a story it lacks the wallop of “You Belong To Me” or “Back To December” – but her impish Shania-esque asides see her through. Oh and it’s a quality tune as well; catchy, propulsive and delivered with the charm that’s endeared her to country, pop, Disney – any audience you can name, really. Still, the girl’s lucky she’s not at college and being graded on a curve.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The only song on Speak Now with this inexorable a chorus is “Mean,” and this song rivals it for pathos. The way in which it apes a late nineties Mutt Lange-helmed production like The Corrs’ “Breathless” makes sense: its polyurethane coating protects the heart and brain. I knocked it down a notch because the verses are just okay.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: When Speak Now came out, I unquestionably would have taken “Mean” over this, no contest. But now that they’ve both been competing for airplay minutes over the past couple months, I’m not so certain. “Mean” clearly has a way more interesting lyric — in fact, the song here is all but non-existent; it communicates barely anything. But where “Mean”‘s music is as pat country-so-what as anything on the album (at first I just thought of it as Taylor’s “Miranda Lambert song”), “The Story Of Us” has that chorus, with its impossibly catchy/pretty melodic twists that make me wonder where or how Taylor could possibly have come up with them, the way Greil Marcus used to wonder about “Rent” by the Pet Shop Boys. And in fact, just like I thought from the beginning, “The Story Of Us” still sounds to me like nothing but a chorus — the verses just bide time between. So I was probably right that “Mean” is the greater track. But I might actually change stations on this less.
[8]

Michaela Drapes: I love how Taylor Swift songs — the production, the too-clever lyrics, her vocal stylings — bludgeon the listener. But, you know, it’s an awesome bludgeoning; I almost always unequivocally submit to it. That being said, the breakneck speed at which this song progresses gets superfluous and exhausting around time the last chorus begins at the 3:30 mark, and I find myself wishing, for all the ecstatic release of the coda, that she’d just wrap it up already.
[6]

B Michael Payne: The song is the storytelling equivalent of an episode of How I Met Your Mother, but that may be more a condemnation of CBS’s pablum than this song. Actually, the song’s focus on the way tiny miscommunications can erupt into cacophonous misfortune is more reminiscent of Seinfeld than any other TV show. And of course, that may say more about what it means to be an adult (popularly conceived) than about Swift’s music, itself. The two are related, though. What I find pernicious about Swift’s music (exemplified by “Story of Us,” of course) is how it’s a narcissistic tidal wave of self-regard. Romeo and Juliet has a body count: It’s a tragedy. Lacking the courage to flirt with your crush is not a tragedy. I simply disdain everything about this song. Its music has the confidence of catchiness without any of its other positive qualities. Its lyrics should bear the label “Now with 50% more cliche!” Even the video, a visual mashup of Gossip Girl and Harry Potter, plays down to the lowest common without any of its attendant (and still repulsive) populist tendencies. It’s just a cheap ploy to get the world to root along with her own triumphalist march over the hearts and minds of those young or foolish enough to indulge her.
[0]

Zach Lyon: This is the point where I admit to officially being tired with Taylor’s lack of lyrical breadth. This reads like a thesis statement for a good 90% of the songs she’s already written, and it certainly doesn’t take us anywhere we haven’t been for three albums. While I love Speak Now‘s directness and after-the-fact confrontational spark, I’m going to have serious problems with the next album if it doesn’t start to branch out more (which means I’m going to have problems with the next album). But this doesn’t make “The Story of Us” a bad track; it sounds exactly like a wonderful track stuck in a world with very little freedom. The lack of country sound isn’t a problem when it’s replaced with a very mid-80s mix of new wave and… J. Geils? and just a shit-ton of energy. Taylor is admirable in that she devotes herself to the track completely, performing it without a trace of “performance,” which is really the highlight of any good Swift track. But still: COME ON.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Even though Swift has a playbook more enviable than most any singer-songwriter working today, she calls a few audibles on “The Story of Us” — and, no, I don’t mean the inter-verse ad libs, which are forced here to work as connective tissue. Extended metaphor and intertextuality are classic Taylor, but she’s used similar framing devices more naturally on tunes like “Love Story” or “Our Song.” Here, the storybook conceit seems forced. It’s enough to almost distract from the telling observations Swift includes in her songs as a matter of course. She is a visual writer, and “See me nervously pulling at my clothes and trying to look busy” exemplifies her ability to escape her own head and capture the emotional tenor of a scene as if she were filming it rather than experiencing it. “I’m standing alone in a crowded room” is beginner level paradox, but “I’m dying to know is it killing you like it’s killing me?” is more devastating than the pop-rock chug accompanying it is willing to allow. As compact, concise and charming as this tune is, Swift’s best songs make room for her ideas to occupy center stage. Here, they exist as asides.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: I’m genuinely shocked that it took this long for ‘The Story of Us’ to get released as a single, because when I first gave Speak Now a spin, it was the one song that immediately jumped out as the hit. More pop than even ‘You Belong With Me’, the only touches of country remaining are the quiet occasional strums of mandolin. It’s nothing we haven’t seen from Taylor before: structured narrative, intratextual album references (sparks fly!), the final chorus meaningful rephrasing, the Shakira-esque awkward similes (held your pride like you should have held me), the bridge as song highlight. But then suddenly ‘The Story of Us’ is all guitar riffs and disco drumbeat, and Taylor is letting loose with a infectious chorus, belting cliche and elevating it to pop glory, and nothing feels more emotionally true than “We’re standing alone in a crowded room and you’re not speaking.” As a bibliophile, I approve of the titular metaphor; it bobs and weaves and gets muddled as college students make out in the stacks, ex-lovers land on different pages, and Taylor tosses her hair in the middle of libraries, but when she insistently exclaims “Next chapter!” I can’t help but smile. (Plus, Taylor has never looked better than she does in this video, the moment where she’s dancing and fixing her hair is hilarious, and the dude drumming along to the song in the middle of study hall is completely adorable.)
[9]

Ever wondered where Internet memes go to die?

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[5.07]

Katherine St Asaph: Review without the video: Real nice sound, but no surprise from a Katy Perry track; real nice sax, but no Clarence; real ni– no, “epic fail” doesn’t get a compliment. Real edgy debauchery, but no fun when your credit’s wrecked from those maxed-out cards, your criminal record’s wrecked from those warrants, and your mind’s wrecked by trying to figure out what you did or didn’t do last night because the only witness you know of is a townie stranger named Julio whose car, a partygoer finally says, you entered with someone else who won’t talk to you. Review with the video: Fuck you, Katy Perry, and fuck your circus-freak geek characters. The only way to regain your morality is to delete and burn every hypocritical copy of “Firework” that exists in the universe. Or at least yank it off Vevo, like your pal Rebecca Black did. No? Thought not.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: This is a rating for the song, which was my second-favorite off Teenage Dream way back in August and remains the second-best song Perry’s ever done. The video is like totally whatever (nerdface minstrelsy as practiced by the rich, beautiful, and famous is always going to be problematic), but the song, with its bouncy, swinging guitar strums and Ke$ha-lite proclamations of party-as-hedonistic-ritual, is glorious. And with all respect to the Big Man, the sax solo on “T.G.I.F.” is way more liberational, transcendant, and Fun™ than on “Edge of Glory.” Or maybe that’s just my old no-wave-loving soul peeking through; there haven’t been nearly enough James Chance homages in the Top Ten lately.
[8]

Michelle Myers: In which Katy Perry discusses a wild night of partying in such vague and trite terms that you wonder if she’s ever been to a party in her entire life. I liked this song (marginally) better when it was called “Waking Up In Vegas.” At least that had some lyrical specificity.
[2]

Zach Lyon: Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Think I need a ginger ale. That was such an epic fail. Katy Perry, I’m only going to say this once: when you overenunciate every single word, that means people actually have to listen to what you’re saying.
[1]

Dan Weiss: Like hashtag rap or Autotune, once you’ve adjusted to a world where the phrase “epic fail” marks everyday songwriting, it’s not so bad. Like when our good-enough hedonistic pop queen rhymes it with “Think I need a ginger ale.” But when she mumbles the lazy-not-(pr)evocative “Yeah I think we broke the law,” I demand to see the charges.
[6]

Michaela Drapes: I think I’ll always find this song endearing for rhyming ginger ale with epic fail. Yes, binge drinking is terrible, and people who party on Fridays are amateurs, but how can you possibly resist this ridiculous catalog of bad behavior when it’s so charmingly executed?
[8]

Anthony Easton: The never-ending sea of referents and ironic kitsch is a bait and switch in a song that seems more desperate than pleasurable.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: It’s impressive how, in keeping with Perry’s songwriting persona of being the sort of CRAZY girl who will do the first thing that comes into her head, she maintains consistency by throwing onto paper the first lyrics that come into her head. The woman is all fearless impulse, a wayward pleasure-seeker who doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing, what she’s saying, what she’s drinking and little things like narrative consistency – did you really have a ménage à trois and forget about kissing, Katy? – don’t bother her. Nor me, but I don’t need to hear the brain-dead “T.G.I.F.” bit or that awful plinky bass sound again, thanks.
[6]

Jer Fairall: The video is admittedly a hoot, or maybe I’m just relieved that its not another “Firework” or “E.T.”-grade atrocity, and the song itself is similarly elevated by severely diminished expectations. Which is to say that this is more easy-to-ignore bad rather than “ow, my freaking ears!” bad, cookie-cutter even by commercial pop standards, but just as easily digested and not nauseating if taken in tiny bites. But please don’t mistake this for progress.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Yet another song in which Perry is either the passive agent for someone else’s fantasy or refuses to accept responsibility, and her voice stinks like cigarette butts in warm beer.
[2]

B Michael Payne: “Last Friday Night” is like a feel-good version of every Ke$ha song, which makes it 100% awesome. Not really paying attention to the album’s singles release schedule, I can’t believe this song hasn’t been out for months (years?). It’s one of my favorite on the album, even if it continues to capitalize on the gross sexualization of Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.” Withholding it until now also proved prescient, since it gets to enter into the Summer of Sax series of singles.
[10]

Matthew Harris: I’m still waiting for an apology from Katy for “UR So Gay,” so until then, I’m never going to look forward to one of her songs. Like “Teenage Dream,” everything starts out well in “TGIF” with its nice, organic guitar strum and hiccupy bass. Dr Luke and Co. are always careful to make you feel the weight and flick of the strings, and that love for detail tickles some delicate part of my reptile brain. But for all of the pop voltage that Luke commands, “TGIF” has the same sort of chorus-that-feels-like-a-pre-chorus that always makes me zone out on the treadmill when my gym plays “Teenage Dream.” I blame Perry, mostly. Her voice is plenty identifiable, but I’ve never been involuntarily disarmed by her ability to show hurt or rush risks. And Perry’s committee-written lyrics often seems to be describing places that market research has mathematically determined are “cool” to males and females aged 18-24 (“Epic fail,” “Ménage à trois,” seriously?). I know giddily describing nothing is pop music’s birthright. But Perry, baby, I want you to have a little more attitude doing it, gosh dammit.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: “Last Friday Night” is one of the handful of Teenage Dream‘s irritatingly catchy tracks that end up on the side of ‘catchy’ rather than ‘irritating’, but it doesn’t have the surprising funk of “California Gurls” or the unstoppable chorus of the title track. What it does have in its favour is one of Katy’s least awkward vocal turns in recent memory, with phrasing that nearly manages to convey an understanding of the song’s plot. Unfortunately, it also tries to rhyme “dark” with “ménage à trois,” and uses the phrase “EPIC FAIL!” Plus, after “I Gotta Feeling,” I harbour vague resentment towards any song that attempts to ensure its ubiquity in clubs and house parties by constantly repeating days of the week. Plus, I honestly think I like Rebecca Black’s “Friday” more.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: I don’t particularly believe Katy Perry is supposed to be a real woman; her persona is better understood as our collective propensity for idiocy made corporeal. So! “T.G.I.F.!” spouts our drunken id, a corny blathered catchphrase that might also be the name of the chain restaurant in which this stupidity starts. It is the weekend, we are like “So what I’m drunk?” and we sha’n’t be judged, for tonight we have Perry as our patron saint, reassuring us that neither responsibility, nor self-respect, nor even simple human decency are reason to button ourselves down. Damn those who would say pop should be enriching. Tonight, we will not allow the world to persuade us that pleasure is wrong, even if that pleasure involves five-minutes-past-its-use-by-date Internet slang. Perry is our pink glitter golem into which we can pour our dumbest selves, an Übermensch of ill-advised behaviors, a dazed, grinning reminder that even when we are at our most unforgivably indulgent, we will regain sense and sobriety. Katy Perry, on the other hand, will be Katy Perry forever.
[8]

Hazel Robinson: With this on heavy rotation on the music channels, I found myself watching it five times yesterday morning and every fucking time I thought “Oh, you know what, Katy Perry’s quite fun, isn’t she? I’d probably go on a night out with her. Oh look, Rebecca Black — aw.” And then it would get to the “T.G.I.F.” and that new friend you’d made would turn out to be a total fucking moron.
[5]

As if Kele would have been able to sing the Republica song properly, anyway.

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[4.90]

Jonathan Bogart: Not a Republica cover, worse luck.
[4]

B Michael Payne: I’d like to hear a particularly drunk person sing this at the end of a long karaoke session. That’s literally the only context in which I ever want to hear this song.
[1]

Michaela Drapes: Yes, yes, yes. I’m so glad to see Kele continuing to embrace his inevitable career path as a house diva with Solveig rather than icky old Tiesto. “Tonight I’m a different guy, forget about the things you know…” indeed. This is totally pressing the same erogenous zone in my brain that the entirety of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Welcome to the Pleasuredome does. Take that as you will; this is definitely not a bad thing.
[8]

Pete Baran: Hold on Martin. Are you just nicking Coldplay’s “Clocks” as your backing?. Are we really in Jason Derulo territory here? OK, if “Clocks” is your “Show Me Love,” then your “Banana Boat Song” appears to be Republica’s “Ready To Go”. Thus we appear to have some bastard eurodisco version of Sky’s Soccer Saturday with a touch more emo. It would soundtrack the return of Andy Gray and Richard Keys if they were forced to have a sex change to make up for their sexist remarks, as distastefully fascinating as that sounds, I guess.
[5]

Anthony Easton: How ironic is this?
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Solveig’s got it all worked out – take elements you’re familiar with from other songs, chuck it into a sporting context via its video, and get a little cred with a cool singer. It’s been good for a massive hit before, and it will be again. But compared to “Hello”, the song is worse and it evokes not even a single feeling of excitement or needing to go anywhere, or do anything. Other than find a more thrilling single, natch.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Digital “Clocks” with some guy shouting over it, as opposed to digital schlock with some girl squeeing over it. At this point Solveig’d probably do just as well by singing over the track himself like the other ambitious/delusional producers.
[5]

Zach Lyon: I could stick around, set the tone, I don’t know, hello. Doesn’t really mean that I’m into you, and I knew you were ready, hello. (Tonight.) I’m a different guy to enjoy the party, don’t get too excited I can see you coming whole (hey). Yeah I think you’re cute but really, yes or no? I just came to sayDY TO GOOOOO…
[4]

Sally O’Rourke: I understand why Martin Solveig is a bit of a punching bag: the English 101 non-lyrics, the transparent song construction (here comes the slow part!), his ambition to become your granny’s favorite dance producer. But I find Solveig’s goofy energy and eagerness to entertain kind of winning, and “Ready 2 Go” is the most purely joyous thing I’ve heard in weeks. A good share of the credit goes to Kele for turning endless repetitions of “I’m ready to go / if you say so” into a power anthem, but it’s Solveig’s house party beats and Numan-on-ecstasy synths that really boost the serotonin.
[8]

Hazel Robinson: I suppose it was inevitable that when the 80s finished being back the 90s would step into the void.
[5]

We like a bit of funky, brainy electropop, don’t we?

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[6.86]

Anthony Easton: Dancing to forget, dancing as maybe an act of mourning, dancing to full and complete exhaustion, is this even dance–carefully constructed, beautifully repeating on itself, coiling and uncoiling, i understand the ripple, but not sure where the banana is.
[8]

Jer Fairall: I usually enjoy Junior Boys albums, though they tend to be so uniform that listening to them feels less like a collection of songs than a continuous mix that varies slightly every five minutes or so. The idea of a nine-minute Junior Boys single, then, hovers somewhere between redundant and pointless in that the only dissonance the listener may experience is when the song ends and more Junior Boys music fails to follow. “Banana Ripple” never makes its length noticeable, nor does it ever build to anything epic or expansive, rather it just does what Junior Boys do frequently and do well: pristine, downtempo grooves, austere synth blips and bloops, vocals tasteful and restrained enough to never upset the beguiling atmosphere of the music. I’m tempted to downgrade this out of spite for the fact that it really leaves me with nothing much else to say than “if you like Junior Boys, you’ll like this” but I do, so I do.
[7]

Alfred Soto: As I get older and my wimpophobia gets fierce enough to resist treatment, I work harder to appreciate acts like Junior Boys. The suppleness of their electronics serves a rather miserabilist ethos, and Jeremy Greenspan’s breathy tenor makes sure we don’t forget it; he sings as if frozen in astonishment, at what who can say. Nine minutes is too long for anyone to emote, but at least his castrati yelps evince a subversion they’d heretofore avoided.
[6]

Michaela Drapes: It takes serious cajones to release a single nine minutes long (even on the dance charts, you know?); the last one I can recall that came close was Death Cab for Cutie’s egomaniacal “I Will Possess You Heart” (a soul-sucking 8:25). Luckily, Junior Boys are one of the only acts, outside of LCD Soundsystem, maybe, that can pull off this advanced level of epic, brainy electropop (sorry, but what do you call this?), deftly shifting the narrative along its wavy path to a charming denouement. Look, when it’s all said and done, I’m one of those people for whom Junior Boys can do no wrong, and they absolutely do not disappoint here.
[9]

Jonathan Bradley: More vibrant than one can reasonably expect from this rather buttoned-down band, and the song even works up a Phoenix-like lope over its nine-minute length.
[6]

Matthew Harris: As “In the Morning” feels ever more menacingly perfect every time I cue it up on my iTunes, I want to like this. But I have to admit that the song’s elements, a riff potpourri pulled from deep vinyl collections, never really gel.
[5]

Zach Lyon: I remember reading somewhere, likely from a contemptuous fan, that Junior Boys make their singles so damn accessible compared to deeper album cuts that they may as well come from a different band. (The subtext was “fucking sell-outs.”) Well, I’m the audience for those ones, and I wish they’d quit it with the boring songs the fans consider authentic so I could give a damn about their albums. And it’s strictly relative that a nine-minute song is considered more accessible than the rest, but here we are. “Banana Ripple” isn’t as perfect as “In The Morning” and I’m not going to revisit it too often, but it isn’t lacking either. You get the sense that they wrote it without a plan, beginning to end, and kept realizing that the song wasn’t over. And it’s a bit thin musically, but it’s also a showcase for their always-evident talent for vocal melody.
[7]

Does exactly what it says it’s gonna do, pleasingly.

[Video][Website]
[6.86]

Pete Baran: So this is all about that fuzzy bass and slow build, right?
[8]

Chuck Eddy: The indie world as usual is too ridiculously behind the curve on its own damn music to ever realize it, but this band peaked way back in 2004 (on Revival Of The Shittest and their self-titled album to be exact), back when they sounded — at their very intermittent best — like some oil-barrel-banged poly-percussive cross between Chrome, the Pop Group, and Einsturzende Neubauten fronted by a young Yoko Ono. Near as my ears can tell, they’re now more some sterile art-collage dance outfit with a performance-art Bjork imitator attempting to sound cutesy and/or pornographic on top. Okay, maybe that’s not all that remarkable a change, given they’ve had seven years to devolve. This mess isn’t entirely without energy. But it doesn’t exactly feel like an exciting portent of music’s future, either.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Not terrible, but not frightening like early GGD; it’s closer to eccentric. These days Lizzi Bougatsos is closer to Bjork than Yoko or Lora Logic. Progress?
[5]

Britt Julious: If you love GGD (I mean really love them, not just admiring their last album’s poppier moments), then you’re certain to love this perfect combination of a decade’s worth of weird tricks. Gang Gang Dance’s most interesting work has often been danceable, a sure contrast to their past psychedelic or even (and I hate this term) freak-folk origins. Lizzy Bougatsos’ squeal can sound so damn good.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: My god, it’s the Top Gear soundtrack combined with Knifery, a bizarre female vocalist and some euphoric synth scraps toward the end that can easily be disregarded. Someone out there has an imagination I covet.
[7]

Michaela Drapes: When a song like “MindKilla” comes along, I rejoice, because we’re all going to sound ridiculous when we try to describe what’s going on here. Sure, there’s that garage-y/grime-y/dubstepp-y/jungle-y beat, but I defy you to explain the rest with any terminology that we currently have at our disposal. Processed vocals, sure. Glitchy things, yes. Noise moments, always – this is Gang Gang Dance, after all. The power-down noise, perfect. I suppose I never thought that out of all the dreaded ca. 2002 NYC “hipster” bands, Gang Gang Dance would come the furthest, churning out slick dance tunes a decade trafficking in almost unlistenable, semi-pretentious noise.
[9]

Matthew Harris: This should be as pleasurable as a slice of slippery cheese pizza and a frosty cream soda for me. It has everything I love: weird lady vocalists, synths squelching out irritating sounds, a fast beat that kicks your knees up. As Bougatsos yelps through the song, it sounds like she’s laughing at me: “Mindkilla” is like a high school horror movie that’s all pigsblood and no redemption.
[6]

80s soundtrack soft-rock revival starts (and probably ends) right here!

[Video][Website]
[5.88]

Anthony Easton: I never got Bon Iver until Kanye, and I never got Calgary, though I have spent weeks off and on there, once or twice a year since I was born. Less now that I live in Toronto, but I went last year, and will go again next year. Calgary is a lot like Dallas — lots of oil money, lots of flash and bang, not a lot of culture, and intensely lonely. I don’t think that I have ever had a good time in Calgary, only ever got laid by boys I brought down with me. So we get this song, processed to pieces, not quite looking or sounding like the previous Bon Iver and it’s intensely, heartbreakingly lonely — but lonely not because it reminds me of some western culture’s nostalgic attempts to reclaim “our western heritage” (as the statue in the airport tells us to do) but because there is no place to break into it. The song is as hermetic as the city.
[9]

Kat Stevens: Pleasant, floaty, unmemorable. That’s not going to cut it in this age of short attention spans and 140 characters! What dude needs to do is punt himself out on a car advert or a sponsorship deal or something… you know, like that Moby fellow. To make slogan writing easier, perhaps Bon Iver could be the face of UK Bonving?
[5]

Alfred Soto: Limpid melancholy sung through a tremulous larynx brings out the Khmer Rouge in me, but this sad sack’s latest has some charms: the opening synth line evoking the Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring,” and the tempo change and ugly guitar in the last half bring the reality his platonic moaning too often avoids.
[6]

Michelle Myers: I actually prefer Justin Vernon’s wishy-washy falsetto when it is buried in layers of 1980s soft-rock sounds.
[8]

Jer Fairall: Can we now start calling 2011 “The Year Soft Rock Broke?” When Dan Bejar indulges in this kind of pastel haze, though, it is like exactly that: an indulgence of an artist who’ll be on to the next thing the moment his erratic muse takes him elsewhere. Justin Vernon plays it far more straight-faced yet the effect is far more amusing. For an artist who built his credibility though a 60s-style back-to-the-earth hippie naturalism to now dabble in 80s-style studio-honed schmaltz feels like a sly acknowledgement of the route that so many of the surviving baby boomer rock idols took through the latter decade, though I doubt that Vernon had any such satirical intent in mind.
[5]

Michaela Drapes: The frustrating thing about Justin Vernon is that he’s a pretty good songwriter, a compelling performer, and an obviously smart guy — but I think he’s gotten a bit lost in a fog of nostalgia lately. Look, if I wanted to listen to Coldplay (Travis?) songs done through a Peter Cetera/Steve Winwood/Phil Collins/Bruce Hornsby filter, I would. But the fact is, I just don’t. I’m sure this is charming for people who didn’t live through mid/late 80’s big production mainstream pop the first time around. And as much as I loved that (I did! I really did!) — I can’t help but think: Ugh, too soon!
[3]

Sally O’Rourke: Starts off like Enya without the Celtic mysticism, then turns into Peter Gabriel without the hooks.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Justin Vernon’s new adventures in hi-fi have blacked out the stretches of empty space he used to such excellent effect on For Emma, Forever Ago, but the keys he’s substituted have an airy beauty of their own. Rather than create thatch against which his mellifluous voice can stand in contrast, Vernon now allows his arrangements to enrich his vocal, and vice-versa. This approach risks eroding interesting ideas into formless foam, but “Calgary” mostly resists that fate, though its ethereal wash lacks the unexpected brutality of his best songs. The nearest it comes to transcendence is when Vernon works himself up to a scribbled-over tantrum on the lines “It’s storming on the lake/Little waves our bodies break.” He’s been known to make such vagaries seem like they mean much more.
[7]

What, no “laborious” jokes? For shame.

[Video][Website]
[3.43]

Jer Fairall: If you say so.
[3]

Michaela Drapes: There’s always something in The Saturdays’ songs that make me cringe — from the weird sample of “Situation” on “If This Is Love” to the hideous cover of “Just Can’t Get Enough” to, well “my resume says I’m a bad girl.” This is lowest common denominator pop of the very worst sort: too remarkably bad to be easily forgotten, yet not rankly offensive or smart or charming enough to be great. Can’t they just, like, go away already?
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: “I’m a bad girl” is not an appropriate statement for a resume. The Saturdays should at least bullet-point it or list specific ways in which they’ve been bad girls, like public indecency inside a streetlight or cribbing from Ke$ha.
[3]

Iain Mew: “My résumé says I’m a bad girl,” they sing, and suddenly I realise what all their claims of outrageous outlawdom remind me of. They’re just like candidates on The Apprentice if they were competing for some kind of dancefloor management position, spouting all of the necessary received buzzwords but sounding like they’re barely even convincing themselves. Still, it’s tryhard in a fairly entertaining manner.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: I like the arpeggiated up-and-down-the-scale synth line, I like the faux-hardness which slips just enough to show the creamy, goofy center. I like the high oh-oh-ohs that break in behind the chorus now and then. I just don’t like the song.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Girl groups need some combination of sass and quality songs. If you have enough of one, you don’t need the other but The Saturdays have neither. It’s really hard to hear “Notorious” as being anything other than meekly embarrassing. Here, they’re once again forced to sell a weak song with tinny, cheap production and a mountain of cliches of badness when they have no attitude or individuality to speak of. Just not good enough for a crowded marketplace, ladies.
[2]

Zach Lyon: Writing a song shouldn’t sound this difficult.
[2]

It gets better. Unless you’re Selena Gomez, in which case it’s ALREADY PERFECT.

[Video][Website]
[6.33]

Katherine St Asaph: If asked “who says you’re not pretty,” most kids who’ve actually been bullied would rattle off an explicit list of at least a handful and an implicit list that contains everyone; meanwhile, the reverse list would contain “Um, my mom? But she has to think so….” There’s a bigger problem, though. This is sung by Selena Gomez, who happens to be ostensibly popular and really pretty herself, enough to be dating Justin fucking Bieber (laugh all you want, this matters to people.) So while you don’t get the sense that Selena’s laughing at your loserhood post-song like Katy Perry, you do get the sense that she’s awfully blithe–especially on that na-na-na-na-I’m-so-beautiful-me pre-chorus, the “Pretty Girl Rock” that tweens didn’t need.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: It’s a shame pop music is stuck on the It Gets Better microgenre, because Gomez’s circa-2011 Hilary Duff fizz would be quite suited to songs about So Yesterday ephemera. “Who Says” is brisk enough for the self-esteem fest not to weigh down proceedings too much and it skips along with girlish charm enough to make its singer’s thin trill of a voice endearing — even when she hits a particularly wheedling note on “Who says you’re not pretty?” Buoyed by mock-serious, stiff-limbed string stings and a jangling guitar line, it’s a sweet, albeit slight, diversion.
[6]

Zach Lyon: If we’re going to call this an It Gets Better song — and it was released in 2011, so that makes it one — it’s certainly one of the better ones. Or at least one of the more endearing ones. I don’t want to think too hard about it; I simply take great comfort in the genuine “Who said that? I’LL KILL THEM” subtext that I might be making up.
[7]

Michaela Drapes: I’m afraid I’m one of those people who’s a sucker for the current vogue for inspirational pop songs. I’m also terribly charmed by Gomez’ ability to really sell this song, all wrapped up in bubbly cliches, especially when the lyrics don’t entirely make sense in a few places. But, whatever, it’s the thought that counts, right? (I’m even more fond of the Spanish-language version of this one, btw.)
[7]

Isabel Cole: I have listened, many times, to “Firework” — also known as “a Katy Perry song,” also known as “not a very good song” — such is my weakness for inspirational songs about how great you are just as your special snowflake self. Lucky for me I feel so much better about liking this one! The warm, cheerful production is intricate enough to stay away from schmaltz territory (my first reaction was “awwww yeah, cellos“), and Selena bounces through it with utmost sweetness tempered by a delicacy that saves her voice from Carlton/Branch territory. She’s so sunny in her earnest pleas for self-acceptance that it took me a few listens to pick up on the unusual dynamic: anyone can reassure someone down on themselves, but it takes a not inconsiderable generosity of spirit to comfort someone harshing on you. Add some na-na-nas and I am more than sold.
[9]

Jer Fairall: Pop has now officially overcompensated for the apparent dearth of self-esteem among today’s young people, but Gomez is a blank enough canvas that this kind of message song can be projected onto her without the kind of baggage that makes Katy Perry and Ke$ha’s attempts at the same sound so fatuous. The real story here, though, is in just how much this song manages to get right in the mechanics of its construction, never mind the triteness of the words: the bright little acoustic refrain, the warm drum machine thump, the cheery “na na na na” hook. By the time she gets to the semi-raps “who says you’re not presedential,” I’m smiling too broadly to remember what I was carping about.
[7]

Michelle Myers: The key to enjoying this song is pretending Selena is singing it as a pep talk to Bieber. Who says you’re not presidential, Biebs? Who says?!
[6]

Edward Okulicz: The sentiments are fluffy but blissfully, so is the tune, so light and summery and addictive, and Selena swoons at every glorious hook as she lines them up across a killer chorus without even betraying the idea that maybe not everyone is as pretty as she. Which puts her light years ahead of Pink, for starters. I thought I was allergic to this kind of song, turns out I was just waiting for it to be done right before letting the defences down. When she asks “Who says you’re not presidential?” to the listener in that perky honey-sweetened voice of hers, I’m thinking, creepily ironic theme song for Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign, anyone? Come on!
[9]

Sally O’Rourke: Just what every depressed teenage girl needs: reinforcement that self-worth equals being pretty.
[2]