Nelly, Missy, and Timbaland all in one week? It’s feeling real 2001 round these parts…

[Video][Website]
[7.73]

Jonathan Bogart: Teenage boredom and one-note blares, hollered syllables and the handclaps of girl-gang solidarity. The aesthetics of the video are all vibrant hood-glam urbanism, but the lyrics are all deathly middle-of-nowhere emptiness, parking lots, barns and mud. There’s a scuzz to the pulsating synths, and a clipped island schwalessness to the choruses, that suggest she’s been listening to M.I.A. and Santigold, but when she drawls “show me all your thuggery” and “get fancy,” it’s pure Canadian dorkiness.
[10]

Zach Lyon: “Parking Lot” sounds like it came from an alternate universe where “I’m Like a Bird” was M.I.A.’s first big hit. It makes just as much sense as an evolution from “Bird” to Timbaland to 2012 and everything in between. The video doesn’t make sense, though; there’s no community here, there’s no dancing. Despite all her words, this song belongs in an abandoned, decrepit warehouse, or perhaps a recording studio. It does apocalypse better than all those songs about the apocalypse.
[8]

Jonathan Bradley: Furtado coming on like M.I.A. hasn’t since… what, “Sunshowers”? The verses are a mess of chaotic, honking horns and sputtered, guttural syllables; the beat a basketball arena–sized stomp-clap; and all of it dissolves into wordless melodic bliss after the chorus.
[8]

Alfred Soto: An uptown M.I.A. infatuated with the possibilities of libertinism, Furtado has for years brought more to the party than contemporaries/fellow guests Rihanna and the odious Katy Perry; she’s like Dangerous Liasions‘ Cécile de Volanges, avid for experience, eager to discard her innocence. Over this spare, clattering track, her rubbery consonants bespeak a willingness to use and be used.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Furtado might have taken her cues from Santigold, but on the strength of “Parking Lot,” she’s competing in a far bigger league — this has a beat that could kill Ke$ha at ten paces. She might sound like she can’t be bothered in the verses, but the chorus underlines that there’s a difference between bored and effortless.
[8]

Will Adams: “Parking Lot” is great because it’s essentially “Hollaback Girl” grown up, free of irony, and self-assured. It’s a bit worrying how Nelly simultaneously sounds like M.I.A., Santigold, and Karen O on the verses. Unsurprisingly, the best part of the song is when she most sounds like herself: the post-chorus vocalizing, when the horns drop out and give her the space of an empty parking lot to do as she pleases. Extra credit to Darkchild for including yet another lovely outro.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The production of this is muddy, and low, like it was designed to be played super loud in shitty speakers — that it would sound better in the middle of a parking lot on the edge of town; it would also sound better as a 20 minute bounce remake, but I am more than okay with the original material. Extra point for the hand claps. 
[9]

Kat Stevens: I have a lot of time for songs that can be played with one finger on the keyboard. I also have a lot of time for songs that can be sung even if your mouth is still numb from having your wisdom teeth taken out and you’re leaking drool everywhere. “Parking Lot” fulfils both criteria here but somehow I’m still not convinced. In the words of Greg Wallace, it just Needs More Oomph.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Listen to those synths, falling in and out of line. They could augur some serious mindfuckery; instead, they foreshadow a pretty “na na hey hey” chorus. This shit is decidedly non-bananas. Furtado slouches against the beat (even the lyric video can’t make the words dance), an approach that works on the Kreayshawn-on-codeine verses but wipes out on the placeholder pre-chorus. Still, no matter how gone she gets, that beat is a fine designated driver.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: The weirdest thing about Nelly’s transformation on Loose wasn’t that she was dabbling in hip-hop and chartpop — she proudly declared herself “too mainstream for you” early on her first album, insisting that “pop ain’t going so low” and was working with Missy and Timbaland shortly thereafter. What was weird was how normal it all sounded. The singles were and are great pop songs, but they’re not all great examples of Nelly Furtado: the nasal tones of her voice are rounded, the lyrics are often less earnest British Columbian hippie than generic radio platitudes, and the production is clean and sometimes beautiful. In short, the edges were sanded off. “Parking Lot,” on the other hand, features Nelly’s trademark vocal contortions, wordless chanting and awkwardly delightful lyrical turns. Do the vocals remind me of Santi and Maya and the rest of the alt-global pop crew? Does the nasal tone occasionally sound a bit like Rihanna? Sure. But, to be honest, this stuff has always been Nelly’s territory. On “Big Hoops” and now on “Parking Lot,” Nelly and Darkchild have cobbled together songs that while still (somewhat) in keeping with her current direction, leave plenty of space for the voice responsible for the most disorienting pronunciation of “ambivalence” ever committed to record, and the woman who once built an entire chorus around scatted cries of “do ji do do ji do ding ding.”
[8]

Iain Mew: The blare sounds like it should be an intro but then it isn’t — it’s VVVVRRRRRVVRRRRVRRRVRRR as a fixture. The call to the parking lot is answered with an irate traffic jam. It works because Nelly and the slow claps just sound even more relaxed in the face of the onslaught, and then in the end everyone stops honking their horns, calms down and shuffles to electro and it’s beautiful.
[8]

Best sports-themed music video since Green Day’s “Nice Guys Finish Last”?

[Video][Website]
[6.33]

Iain Mew: Orange Caramel are an offshoot of After School, who gave me my first taste of K-Pop on the Jukebox in 2010. They’re apparently intended as a sweeter and more light-hearted alternative. That seems to show through the neon table tennis video more than the song, which comes on pretty hard. The saxophone sets a new standard for obnoxious sax earworms, but it works out much better than 4Minute because the song is built around it and because “ah ma ah ma” and the Casino Night Zone synths are such great hooks.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Orange Caramel’s first full-length album touches on musical styles from all over the globe, ranging from 1990’s J-Pop to Stereolab. Crucially, it never settles on imitation — this After School sub-unit finds ways to twist each influence into something all their own.  “Lipstick” is a good example, even if it isn’t the best song in the Orange Caramel song catalog. The driving sounds of the song are straight from the “Mr. Saxobeat” school of European pop. It’s the small details, though, that make this good, such as how those squiggly synths sneak in after the chorus or how the primary horn loop changes at various points throughout the track. “Lipstick” definitely takes moves from foreign sources, but focusing on that leads to missing out on all the little touches that make this distinctly Orange Caramel.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: I was worried I was overrating a fairly run-of-the-mill Korean take on Eurohouse because of a great video until I started playing it with the vision off. It holds up: as if “Mr. Saxobeat” had girl group pop heft behind its chorus. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: It takes more will than I possess to get past “There’s a Place in France.” It’s OK Europop: bite-sized synth hook, coy delivery, garish video color palette.
[5]

Will Adams: Even with the saxophone, “Lipstick” is less Alexandra Stan and more Inna, what with the thin voices being supported by an even thinner Eurobeat. Its only claim to memorability is the pilfered melody from “The Streets of Cairo.” Otherwise, this is classically disposable.
[4]

Frank Kogan: If you think of this as food, it’s a nice melding of a delicate meringue and a pie fight. It’s got happy feet, too (the song, that is; not the pie): a fast trot with little offbeats that no speak americano.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: I’m fascinated by the production details, the way the insistent breakbeat gives texture to what is a very samey oompah of a song. (At least until the slowed-down bridge.) The little flourishes of drums, guitar, or Casio approximations at the ends of phrases help, but I can’t shake the (inaccurate and unhelpful) metaphor of empty calories. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: A dense production does justice to the coquettish vocals.
[6]

Anthony Easton: The last 10 seconds or so of this is fascinating — sort of like a calliope, and so intended for mechanical reproductions of dancing, as opposed to dancing itself. Stripped of the vocals, this seems to be a metonymy for how pop and dance have worked recently. 
[7]

America: He’s the guy who recorded that song with Brad Paisley on the Cars II soundtrack…

[Video][Website]
[5.38]

Edward Okulicz: It doesn’t matter that Robbie Williams has never sounded so whimsically charming before, but he seems to have accidentally written a game show theme, not a pop song. He’s dressed for the part in the video, too.
[5]

Iain Mew: The brass at the start sounds a lot like something else — I keep thinking Architecture in Helsinki, and it is a bit “Do the Whirlwind” — but I’m sure there’s something else it’s even closer to, which is going to keep annoying me. Past that, “Candy” is a return towards “Tripping” and its “kind of cabaret act reggae” sound (his words). Which should be good because “Tripping” is one of his best songs, but “Candy” replaces its strangeness with breezy satisfaction and wordplay that ranges from OK (“lots of different horses by lots of different men”) to icky (“mother was a victim, father beat the system”).
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Robbie Williams’s ability to soak his personality into everything he touches explains why he’s such a successful pop star (with certain geographical caveats).That his work is so suffused with his self-satisfied laddishness is exactly why I find him so intolerable. “Candy” slots into the jaunty lineage of Dexy’s Midnight Runners and, erm, Dogs Die In Hot Cars, except, more than anything else, it’s a Robbie Williams song. If Billy Joel were reborn as English, perhaps this would be the noisome result.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Much like I do with Robbie Williams, I have an ambivalent relationship with playground chants. Both, after all, matter to subcultures in which I either no longer traffic or whose talents come off as facile. The rhymes are clunky as usual, and Williams sings like Bob Barker recording an album of Who covers.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Did he record this while doing double-dutch? That’s a playground melody if ever I’ve heard one. This is fine bubblerock; I can’t imagine it uniting an arena, but we are living in a New Age.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Lite pseudo-reggae. Well, that was a direction I was not expecting. The oral sex references are always appreciated, though I have no idea what candy has to do with “a hurricane at the back of her throat.”
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: Was not expecting anything this uptempo or hammy from Robbie at this stage in his career — isn’t early middle age when guys like him are supposed to start saying “But seriously, folks”? He leans into the smugness curve like he’s been doing it all his life (he has), but for once the production keeps pace.
[6]

Josh Langhoff: Lust masquerading as concern dripping with smugness disguised by relentless cheer and a great string/horn arrangement. Barry Manilow wishes he was this big an asshole.
[8]

Don’t get it wrong, we’re still Barbies though…

[Video][Website]
[5.43]

Jonathan Bradley: I gotta admit, none of these very entertaining rappers is at his or her best here, but each is so complementary and competent that the combination seems better than it should. I like Nicki’s always versatile boasts, here calling herself Santa Claus and finding a new twist on the “I have a private jet” trope: “When I fly it’s one letter and one number.” I also like Cam’s contribution, because, when it’s been this long since we’ve heard from him, even rudimentary Dipsisms like “See, the car’s European but got imported from Tokyo/Looking like a shark; the nose, call it Pinocchio” are mildly thrilling. Oh yeah, Rick Ross is here too, but even the “suck a big dick” hook outclasses him. Sorry Rozay: alongside tongues this acrobatic, you’re bound to come off clumsy.
[7]

Brad Shoup: This is the Roman Reloaded Hit-Boy track that doesn’t sound like it should actually be called “Beez in the Trap”. It’s a chiller minimalism than “Beez,” and since Nicki got two guests not known for throwing beads, everything’s okay. There must have been some kind of lyrical collaboration here: Nicki’s Santa reference gets brushed off by Cam, who picks up Rozay’s attitude towards manners (and hammers). Is it lazy? Intertextual? No idea, but note this: beaching the break upfront is a huge no-no.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: “I Am Your Leader” boasts the better guest spots — Rick Ross fits in a good line about being “Vince McMahon with a beat” while it is just nice to hear Cam’ron on something like this — but “Beez In The Trap” did chilly minimalism better. Nicki Minaj sounds fine sticking it to haters, and might be the first rapper to consider getting merchandise into Hot Topic something to brag about, but Hit-Boy’s beat is simply serviceable instead of shiver-inducing.
[6]

Anthony Easton: You know there are so many much more interesting sex acts than fellatio, and I am convinced that wanting to have fellatio to prove you are better than your partner is a bigger douche move than driving what must be the world’s most expensive Benz into a low income housing area; add to that Nicki Minaj internalizing the worst of this misogyny, and I’m just bored. 
[0]

Iain Mew: The weightless swish and hum is great, but compared to the rest of the album’s first section “I Am Your Leader” is short on memorable lines in its verses. And “suck a big dick” is no “dick in your faaace, I put my dick in your faaaaaace”.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Nicki’s already got no choice but to release her second-string rap-market songs. Hmm. Wonder how that could have been averted? (By releasing “HOV Lane.”) (Or giving Rick Ross a break, though he’s likely a status symbol.) (Nothing anyone suggests about Nicki Minaj’s career will register at this point, hence the parentheticals.)
[6]

Alfred Soto: Minaj, at her most assured, walks panther-like through the verses, raising the game such that the chorus isn’t the disappointment it at first sounds like. But from Ross going “give me brain while I tweet” to that chorus I don’t know what A&R guy (do they still exist?) thinks he can get this into the top ten. 
[7]

Note: this does not mean we have aligned with TWFanmily. Or with the Directioners. We’re currently mulling over our options and trying to figure who can offer the best protection…

[Video][Website]
[6.44]

Katherine St Asaph: What the hell happened? On paper, this is awful: “We Found Love” with the leftover “Glad You Came” presets, polluted with blorty bass and disco and handclaps, as a booty call, with a chorus entirely in falsetto and a strained soulful bridge. But they sell it like The Rapture. Forget that Canadian kid; our next Timberlake may well come from abroad.
[7]

Brad Shoup: The falsettos are paltry soul, but they’re shuffled tight enough to create something like the intended effect. Similarly, the faux-house exhortation to the people ends up somewhere interesting instead of straight-up embarrassing.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I love when the church and the club collapse under the power of a full disco banger, especially when you read “church” as a gold lamé bedecked boudoir. Cut the first verse, and it’s almost perfect: the echoing hand claps, the stuttering lasers, the falsetto chorus, and the vocal effects. 
[9]

Alfred Soto: By the time Clear Channel pummeled “Glad You Came” into me in July I had cried uncle weeks before, so I was ready for conversion. The Philip Bailey-style falsettos, filtered through several years’ worth of Calvin Harris-Guetta remixes, are more batshit than I’d expect from such hot young things. There’s still not much of a song though, and they ain’t fooling anybody with the blinded-by-the-light testifyin’.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Reading YouTube comments between One Direction fans and The Wanted fans is way less grating than the chorus on “I Found You.”
[3]

Will Adams: It’s courteous of them to always start off with the chintzy accordion synth, allowing me ample time to switch to another radio station. But what if I were sitting in the back seat, and had no choice but to listen to the horrid strains over mind-numbing bosh? Calling shotgun has never seemed so necessary.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: A smarter, catchier, better “Glad You Came,” saved by a bigger, deeper groove, and topped with a potentially disastrous but quite effective falsetto chorus. Where the average accordion house single skips along, this one stalks with unexpected claws in its beats.
[8]

Zach Lyon: I totally support pitting them against 1D after every single single, so let’s talk about the main reason “I Found You” wins this round with fervor: that chorus. Where the chorus of “Live While We’re Young” is interchangeable with those of their previous two hits — to the extent that getting any one of them stuck in my head meant getting all three stuck in my head — the Wanted boys know to change things up. A lot. And I don’t think the same criticism can be levied against the already-stale-in-2010 Euro accordion synth that we already heard in “Glad You Came”, because at least Steve Mac turns them into something nice and sinister. Also not to be underestimated: their wonderful tries at rough ‘n’ throaty baritone in the verses, the successful stomp in the chorus.
[8]

Iain Mew: Masking their particular vocal shortcomings by doing devotional falsetto for most of the song is an unexpectedly brilliant move, helped by imagery as striking as a “river of pure emotion”, but it’s not even the best one here. That would be taking the balearic beats of “Glad You Came” and twisting them hard into a vicious death spiral after every chorus.
[8]

Purely coincidence we run these first two songs on the same day, yessiree…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.29]

Anthony Easton: That piano is just absurd, and the whispery vocals over that absurd piano bring me to that magic place where I’m so swoony that I may as well collapse on a pure caramel sled through a landscape of marshmallow fluff and candy trees, pulled by two glorious unicorns. The whisper swoon continues over three minutes, and even when it speeds up nothing breaks apart. The magic unicorns arrive and live forever in a tower of spun sugar.
[9]

Iain Mew: I love Qu Wanting’s voice, which has an effortless quality to it even as she conveys a lot of feeling (which works in English too, so it’s not a language difference thing). I also love the sound of the piano and of the shimmers of guitar that ripple around her, and the way that everything builds in power whilst still sounding like a soft hug of a song. Each time I listen it keeps getting lovelier.
[8]

Brad Shoup: Finally, I’ve realized: I don’t like ballads. Even ones that sound like a more relaxed Colbie Caillat.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: The first minute of this song is lovely — Wanting sings about lost love over drowsy guitars, and it is a great match for her lyrics about saving memories in art. Then “You Exist In My Song” swings into more typical ballad form and it isn’t quite as nice.
[5]

Alfred Soto: It gets, as Neil Young would say, innaresting when those multitracked harmonies buttress the gossamer-thin melody. But, yes, it barely exists, even in song.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: And ballads exist in my memories of middle-school auditoria. This is more “second-act interlude of the talent show” than “last slow dance,” but everything more or less works. Pro: the harmonies in verse two breeze in like breaths; the last few seconds’ vocal crack and neat piano conclusion are crafted to foolproof. Con: the bridge doesn’t soar but sputter; not much soars, in fact. Maybe this could be the second slow dance.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: I keep wanting it to turn it into “Your Song,” and that’s (oddly enough) high praise: while it might or might not be true that anyone can write a gloopy ballad, it’s a lot harder to nail Taupin’s specific attitude of self-absorbed generosity. That this even comes close is a minor triumph.
[7]

I’ve seen a hit!

[Video][Website]
[7.14]

Jonathan Bogart: Not to be the guy who’s all “oh, we’re finally getting around to reviewing this after it’s been out for months,” but, well, it’s been great for months now.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The ugliest industrial sounds of the year complement the chanting. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: Salt-n-Pepa x 2 Live Crew, with Brutal Juice’s Craig Welch surveying the landscape. I just saw the Juice at a festival this month; Welch is in a hip-hop project now, and he spent soundcheck chanting “guillotine” into the mic. At their best, Brutal Juice spewed out horrific imagery in a way that split the difference between goonish humor and real repulsion. “Show me something I ain’t seen before,” sez MC Ride in the first verse, clicking through juking and footage of people getting high. It only gets realer from there, as he ponders the surveillance state that puts so much carnage at the fingertips. He checks out a cop blowing some kid away, but there’s no sense of accountability obtained: the machine’s going to keep spitting out this shit. Meanwhile, the guitar line whines and warps, a pitbull shaking a piece of meat in slo-mo. That sunken stutter recalls Eminem’s Pee Wee-biting on “Just Lose It,” only here its goofiness is a symptom of madness. An hour with this song and paranoia becomes the only reasonable mindstate.
[10]

Patrick St. Michel: The production is Jock Jams gold, Zach Hill and Andy Morin creating a crustier version of “Push It.”  The vocals, though, distract from the song as a whole.  MC Ride’s shouts neither sound like rapping, nor do they really sound like something that would come from a hardcore singer.  It instead sounds like a bad half-way point between the two. 
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: Underground hip-hip during its academic phase: guitar loop, electro-era drum pattern, indecipherable vocals, indie production. The fact that the first three are live matters naught.
[4]

Will Adams: The video’s onslaught of images points out that we’ve all seen footage; if you look hard enough, you’ll find an unsettling amount of depraved shit available for public viewing on YouTube. The distorted synth riff is ugly and relentless, the sonic equivalent of another filmed shooting, beheading, or beating that assaults you and doesn’t let up. Fortunately, there’s also a catchy-as-hell hook to attenuate the disturbing content.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: To take paranoia to a level of sheer awesomeness, add hooks and dizziness. And beats straight out of “Push It” if you can get away with it.
[8]

Remember how you responded when a teacher called you “promising”?

[Video][Website]
[5.29]

Iain Mew: Alt-J create music that shows obvious evidence of how carefully it has been pieced together. It’s not quite minimalist, but there’s a efficiency designed to point at elements in light, fresh yet uneasy songs. I would be slightly scared of the results if new British indie bands taking after In Rainbows and xx in equal measures becomes a wider thing, but I’m glad this one did.
[8]

Anthony Easton: Smooth, and it sparkles, sort of like the soundtrack to Patton Oswalt reading his gentle tweets. 
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: The musical arrangement sounds promising, but Alt-J never take it anywhere more interesting than “art-school-dorm-room messing around.”  The vocals sound like Alt-J forgot to record them the first time around, so they rushed some bland mumbling about bullfighting over it.
[3]

Brad Shoup: So what would the Alt-J keyboard command be? Does it open Thought Catalog?
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: “Something good will make me forget about you,” the guy mewls. Piano droplets rain from the sky, and it’s true: I forget about him. Then either they’ve disappeared or I’ve forgotten them too.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Pretty to no purpose, even the piano trills lifted from nineties Moby.
[4]

Will Adams: I agree, In Rainbows is something good.
[6]

Which is the Lance Bass/Jonathan Knight one?

[Video][Website]
[4.38]

Brad Shoup: The meek guitar intro is halfway between Green Day’s “Waiting” and the pick scrapes from “Should I Stay or Should I Go”; two-thirds of the way through, the “Starships” riff perks up! The yo-yoing melody line will slay during car rides, but empty calories are the thing that makes road trips possible.
[4]

Britt Alderfer: An ode to one-night stands that ends in a wet t-shirt contest. I am not sure how much of my delight is from the actual song though and how much is for the cult of personality at play. We have all sorts types to adore, pick your flavor. Zayn comes off as the bad boy, Liam is sort of a steady older-brother type, Niall is the goofball, Harry is the sly flirt, Louis is perhaps the drama queen. Their music videos always show them capering around and occasionally dancing in a choreographed way but usually just partying and having loads of fun. They come off as normal guys with elaborate hair who are also bros, and maybe they have a crush on you that they don’t even want to be subtle about it anymore.  So what to rate this song? Well, their biggest hit in the US so far, “What Makes You Beautiful”, actually pales in comparison. “Live While We’re Young” is just as lively but lyrically less obnoxious for sure: it suggests sneaking out with them for sexy fun as long as you “don’t let the pictures leave your phone” (Zayn’s hard-won wisdom, I’m sure). They coo at you in the verses, even repeating themselves a few times to make sure you’re getting it – yes, you – and then the chorus pumps up big with who-oahs and oo-oo-ohs. They plunge into a pleasingly intimate bridge and then it’s straight back to the party. They probably crank out beautiful harmonies in their sleep at this point – if they do sleep.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I was thinking that it must be that I am ancient, that I don’t find this kind of moral exhortation to BE YOUNG AND HAVE FUN moving at all, but I kind of hated it when I was 19 too…
[6]

Alfred Soto: Can one truly claim to live when the “Starships” riff signifies the freshness of youth?
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: My junior high school days coincided with the peak of American boy-band dominance lead by ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys. As a 13-year-old surrounded by girls who loved these two groups, I joined my fellow male students in hating them at every opportunity.  Now I teach junior high school students who love boy-band One Direction and who regularly ask me “Do you know One Direction, Mr Patrick?” before getting really excited when I say yes.  I absolutely would have hated something like “Live While We’re Young” when I was a young teenager, but today it is something I can listen to and appreciate: bouncy pop music made for teenage girls on summer vacation to listen to on loop. But I hope my students didn’t do to much research into the “tonight let’s get some” line.    
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: So much pretense! Pretending they’re cool (I can say it, they did), pretending cool means emulating their Oasis cover, pretending they’re in love, pretending that pretend love sounds like Family Innuendo Night, pretending none of them confiscated her phone before their playdate, pretending the chorus doesn’t make me want to go listen to “Adios Amigos” instead.
[3]

Iain Mew: Not a carbon copy of “What Makes You Beautiful” but it doesn’t do much to alter the approach, right down to keeping the cowbell. The two blatant steals this time (“Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Starships”) are less disagreeable than the “Summer Nights” one and “Live While We’re Young” is much less lopsided towards its chorus, which is good. It still sounds nearly as slight and the message about having sexy fun because that’s what young people have to do, right, is not exactly inspiring.
[5]

Will Adams: Some quick paraphrasing of the chorus will reveal that it’s actually a patchwork quilt of the past year in pop: Hey, I just met you/but let’s get some because we are young/go crazy ’til we see the sun/woah-oh-ohhh-ohh-oh/also, “What Makes You Beautiful” will be playing in the background while we have sex/maybe “Starships too. It’s at once despicable and impressive, but mostly despicable.
[2]

Wait, which D&D expansion pack is this?

[Video][Website]
[3.83]

Brad Shoup: Two-part question: do you like Paramore, but wish Hayley Williams sang less about real shit and more about faded empire? For me, the answers are “no” and “surprisingly, yes.” I dunno, something about ending your chorus with “we ran to Avalon” unties a lot of knots. It’s a big murky mess, with dumb chug during Kusterbeck’s refrains; I can practically hear my windshield wipers flapping along. Go get that Game of Thrones money, Professor.
[7]

Iain Mew: The long shadow of “Written in the Stars” continues. I like this attempt a little better than “Read All About It” because Professor Green makes more interesting lines out readymade epic imagery than his own life, and because Sierra Kusterbeck being a weaker singer means the choruses stick out a little less, but it’s still a stale format.
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: Someone call the Vans’ Warped Tour, we got one of the token rap acts right here.
[2]

Anthony Easton: Sierra’s verse here is so languid that it must be an artistic choice, and I am damned to tell if it is one that improves or destroys Professor Green’s angular verses. 
[6]

Will Adams: Professor Green moping and Sierra Kusterbeck braying, all atop an instrumental that sounds like an Evanescence demo: This is about as appealing as a warm energy drink. Hey, wait a sec…
[3]

Jonathan Bradley: Constipated yaps don’t turn into rapping merely by virtue of a backbeat. White boys haven’t sounded this bad on the mic since the days of Morris Minor and the Majors — and at least they had “comedy” on their side.
[1]