YOUR 2012 GRAN CAMPEONA WISHES YOU FELIZ NAVIDAD AN’ SHIT

THE JUKEBOX WILL RETURN on JANUARY 2nd

Update: Winner of our contest announced!

& COMET & CUPID & DONNER AND BLITZEN

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[5.62]John Seroff: Sleepy mumblecore reminiscent of Faithless on benzos, “Call Her” is goth makeout music for pool parties. That’s a salad fork I’m unlikely to need on the table anytime soon, but one I have room for in the drawer.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: At the risk of sounding like a Skrillex meme: pretty, but where the hell is the bass? (No, Tricky doesn’t count.)
[6]

Ian Mathers: This is gorgeous and atmospheric as hell, but… not much really happens? “You” was an amazing song, but this almost feels more like an extended interlude than anything else. Everyone involved does a fine job, and in some other context it might work perfectly, but as a standalone song it feels a bit undercooked. It is really gorgeous, though.
[7]

Anthony Easton: The soft voice barely audible under female moaning and abstracted electronic noise is supposed to sound romantic in some capacity, I think, but it just sounds super creepy.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: Creepy and CREEP-y as ever, but there’s even less of a song than there was on “Animals“. I still love the project, but I’m nervous about potential diminishing returns. Or perhaps just about how dependent their success seems to depend on what their collaborators bring to the table. While Tricky and School of Seven Bells hypothetically seem like good fits, they don’t assert themselves over the track nearly as strongly as Romy xx or Nina Sky once did.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: I imagine it would work great as a lingering mood-chaser towards the end of a more sonically varied and uptempo album. On its own, though, it’s a little too wispy and insubstantial to catch hold of; not even Tricky’s baritone mutterings tether it to earth.
[5]

Brad Shoup: My brain did a double take at the feature; as many artists as Tricky’s worked with, I don’t believe I’ve encountered him on the Jukebox. “Call Her” is four minutes that sound like 20, a misty landscape wherein Mr. Tricky tries to outdub the bass. But the focus is da la Deheza, who drags things along without the panache of a Holly Miranda or the playfulness of Nina Sky. As always, CREEP dunks nearly everything in reverb, and as always, the result is music made for Hell’s dental office.
[5]

Will Adams: Gee, I’m sleepy.
[5]

The schlocking was sung by the stadium with care…

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[5.89]

Sabina Tang: This came on in the car, my jaw dropped and I said aloud to the empty air, “What is this? Who wrote this?!?” Answer per wiki: Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow. Well. All to say it’s the storytelling that seizes and suspends one by the throat, though Robbie-the-singer delivers dry-eyed hurt as required. In five years’ time some slip of a girl will let loose with a torrent of desperation on The X Factor or K-pop Star or what have you — this time I’ll be better, I want you to know; this time I’ll be special, oh God, make it so — and win all our hearts thereby.
[9]

John Seroff: Williams’ bombastic, weepy mea culpa is a plea for more time and more patience for the lion in winter, but there’s not much among the strings and sunset to suggest anything more than more of the same forthcoming.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Williams works well when he can either live up to his worst excesses or rein them in. It’s an either/or situation, and both are infused with the sincere camp that only the British do exceptionally well. This one is a muddled pudding, almost but not as bad as that time a decade ago when he tried to break into the American markets. 
[4]

Edward Okulicz: “Different” sounds to these ears like a refinement of the sound Williams tried to on Advertising Space to limited acclaim and disappointing sales — where he was likeably vulnerable but just not very interesting. By contrast, this has perhaps Williams’ best chorus, his most honest vocal performance and his most earnest lyrics. It’s half polite stadium rock of the kind that made him famous in the UK and half camp of the kind that made me want to punch him repeatedly, and moments of it, like how the prechorus gets chunky and rocky, are ridiculously effective. It’s tempting to credit Gary Barlow, who co-wrote, but the wounded grandeur is Williams’ schtick, not Barlow’s. It’s just never been harnessed so successfully before.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: The chorus is surprisingly affecting, but overall this is something I’ve heard a bunch before.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: A power ballad by the powerless. Make no mistake: he’ll summon up strings and brass, high notes and choirs like the four horsemen of the apocalypse — but, much as in life, no revelation arrives.
[3]

Brad Shoup: Points to Jackknife Lee: though he couldn’t find a way to keep the intro’s God-over-the-waters string riff as a focal point, he hooked me. Williams requires a lot of vocal tracks to put across this “personal” message: a nod to age, I’m sure, but one that adds as much distance as the packed production.
[5]

Iain Mew: The verses are lurching, desperate things that are even more shocking for the fact that it’s Robbie Williams there undercutting the pretty strings and managing to make “tremble at the sight of your majesty” sound convincing and not just smug at the words he’s turning. The chorus is overkill and suggests his over-demonstrative instincts are still in play, but then there’s the guitar solo and it returns to brutally emotional again
[7]

Ian Mathers: “You’d rather be right than be loved.” But our Robbie could never quite decide which one he really wanted, or even which one he could get; even at his most smoothly assured there’s always that faint tinge of desperate flailing, of self-laceration, of a fragile facade. Yes, he’s got a nice voice, and he was a handsome young man (and physically he’s aging well, in a character actor kind of way), but it’s that woundedness that makes him compelling — that made him, God help him, a pop star. “Different” is a good song and he sings it well, and absent any context it would still succeed, but as the latest in a long line of dispatches from a man who (publicly, at least) has only ever had a passing acquaintance with contentment, it cuts a little deeper. “This time I’ll be special, you know I will” could be an insincere plea from a cad, but it could also reveal a deep core of self-loathing that he’s been fighting with bravado. What’s the other line from the video? “If you’re not here, I’ll fight myself.”
[9]

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and everyone went house…

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[7.00]

Alex Ostroff: Tegan and Sara’s early albums were some of my first tentative steps away from pop in high school, so I’m glad that as I’ve returned to the fold, they’ve joined me. But “Closer” is still a little too angular and awkward and gangly to be anything but a song by the Quin sisters. Their little vocal hiccoughs and upturned yelps at the end of lines coded as abrasive and unapproachable in earlier guises, but here they add colour, exuberance and — especially on those delightfully delivered “underneath me”s — touches of lust.
[9]

Anthony Easton: Shimmering and desperate, with a full and complete understanding of the implications of dance music.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: It seems nobody is safe from the sound of Greg Kurstin these days, but the Quin twins have written a song with enough genuine horniness to percolate along to the boppy beat, which could be any producer and probably is. Best of all, they sing with enough passion that their personality infuses the song with grit. Yes, they’re a little on the yelpy side, but desire sometimes moves faster than the vocal cords can articulate it.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Hurrah for more body work! I love the line “I won’t treat you like you’re typical” because I get to read it as the incomplete sentence “like your typical.” Lust makes you dumb, and that’s the kind of drunken scam we’ve heard a billion times. It’s all about the sell here, and the structure is a bit of a plateau, but still, I welcome Tegan and Sara’s entry into the club sweepstakes.
[7]

John Seroff: Inoffensive (if sub-Kylie) Glee-bait with too-beveled edges and an aw-cute polymorphous perverse video, “Closer” is T&S at their apex of boring.  It’s odd that a song seemingly engineered for maximum crowd response for the encore is so barely there, but perhaps that’s what the crossover can do.
[4]

Ian Mathers: I appreciate the joke (if it’s that) in the video where at the beginning the screen says “performed in the style of Tegan and Sara,” because this sounds a lot different from their other albums, see? Although you certainly could imagine this song being transposed to their normal sonic environment. 
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: I’ve seen a little bit of ginned-up outrage that Tegan and Sara made a dance record, but it’s kind of hard to credit. Their music was always simple, chanty and heavy on basic rhythms anyway; why not add the 4/4 thumps and crystalline synth washes that would make it sound, you know, good?
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: “Teenage Dream” in holiday spangles and a champagne-rickety gait. It’s pitched, I’m guessing, at something other than the Dr. Luke crowd, perhaps to its detriment; I’d never wish Siafication on T&S, and maybe the structure’s supposed to simulate awkward-endearing almost touches or sudden tipsy kisses or whatnot, but Luke’s rigid songwriting at least provides a consistent rush. 
[7]

Iain Mew: Some good hooks, especially the synth scales which I am currently reading as both Patrick Wolf-y and Christmassy. They get a bit lost in production softness that leaves it all feeling a bit distant, though, even as the words are about closeness.
[5]

Will Adams: Here comes the rush before we touch. You sit on an old couch in a basement you’ll probably never be in again. The party’s as lively as ever, and the crowd you walked in with has dispersed to the bar or the dancefloor. Your eyes are inches away from your friend’s. Here comes the heat before we meet. You continue to exchange words, shortening them until you’re left with “yeah.” You’re simply breathing at this point. The music is still playing, but it’s all muffled, except for one impassioned cry that peeks through: “I want you close, I want you.” Your bottom lip quivers. You both tilt your heads forward, and the distance is closed. Here come the dreams of you and me.
[9]

The entire video isn’t as sexy as this…

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[7.33]

Edward Okulicz: Talk about a thrilling and shape-shifting bit of production! Wehbe’s voice is good but she doesn’t really have to do much other than waft dramatically over the proceedings. The opening thirty seconds herald something that could have gone in any direction. Waves of gorgeously treated strings tick the exotica boxes, but when the drum machine comes in, it’s a mere heart-beat away from being a fully-fledged power pop ballad. Just as well everyone involved either chickened out or avoided the car crash — the rhythm is too bouncy for it. The sounds are different to what you’d get in Western pop, but the opulence is a familiar trick, and executed beautifully.
[8]

Brad Shoup: A stuffed production: my favorite bit comes when the drum kit appears. Had it lasted the entire song, it would have given off the stank of goff, so thank heavens. The synth riff burrows around in a few registers; Wehbe does the same. Dance to the indignance.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: I know a very little bit about Lebanese pop, but what I do know suggests that Haifa Wehbe is something on the level of a Madonna circa 1992 or a Kylie Minogue circa 2002. “Bokra Bfarjik” was her big 2012 single, with a splashy video about stolen romance in 1950s Italy (with a brief interlude for a Nescafé commercial) and a production that stops just short of going into a dubstep breakdown. Of course Arabic musical traditions have had their own methods of suspending and elasticating time for millennia.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Wehbe’s singing and the melody are consistent throughout, but the backing subtly shifts behind her for the length of the song (and so do the effects applied to her voice). It never goes anywhere too radical, but it still helps “Bokra Bfarjik” hold the attention more than it might have otherwise.
[6]

Iain Mew: This could almost be emo for the first ten seconds of guitars. It goes on to have elements that point plenty of other ways amidst a delightfully extravagant and expansive arrangement. Wehbe sounds like she’s enjoying the luxury from a slight distance, which works neatly as a way of stopping it all from getting too much. If those strings could ever be too much.
[8]

Andy Hutchins: If anyone had set an SNES game in Beirut and then laid sweet, clipped vocals over the 8-bit parts, then programmed about nine beat moltings into it, this would be the result, I think. Too many ideas that pull it in too many different directions to warrant listens on repeat, but I do wish that there were a game I could play to go along with it. (This wasn’t an elaborate Wiebe/Wehbe pun until I finished this blurb, I swear.)
[6]

Maybe Future can give them a ride…?

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[6.30]

Frank Kogan: As Rimi she’s done both hardcore rap and comedy, the hardcore sounding concentrated and dexterous, the comedy more ebullient. Here she’s embedding herself in sweet indie sound-layering that’s both cloying and tepid and that I don’t prefer to silence. But when her own rapping goes hard the contrast is kinda galvanizing, like shooting BB pellets through cherry cheesecake.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Soo-Rim’s raps are spiky and impressive, but on top of wistful dream-pop, they come off second best to the ache of the sung choruses. That holds true for two-and-a-half minutes and then you get a bizarre fanfare that would make more sense if the song were about going to the actual moon — pop as surrealism and romanticism at once.
[7]

Will Adams: At this pace, it’s more like crawling to the moon. ETA: Never.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: I’m so used to a gleaming chassis and supercharged engine in K-pop that something this rickety, not to say spindly, putt-putting along on clouds and sighs is something of a novelty. A preponderance of anything gets old.
[7]

Sabina Tang: Nam Soo-rim, like E.via, has several years of career under her belt already; where’s the belated trend piece on Korea’s female MC steam-engine time? Online review consensus seems to be that the Drive Me To The Moon EP constitutes a softer turn from her usual swagger. It’s romantic, all right: Park Ji-yoon’s hook a full-body swoon, over the guitar equivalent of a 360-degree starfield screensaver (it sounds incredibly like Supercar, to the point where I suspect it’s sampled outright). Two girls in the video, too, which at 3AM is liable to make me blurt something quite tinhatty.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Finds the right balance between rap-friendly production and dreamy backdrop appropriate for at-times surreal lyrics (the title being the giveaway even before dropping it into Google Translate). I’m left hypnotized in a very nice way.
[7]

Ian Mathers: I liked Drive a lot, but part of me wants to see the version of that film that would have used the intro/chorus of this track for its soundtrack instead. The blunt vocals the rest of the time work just a little bit against the melancholy/dreamy air of the rest of the song, though. So I guess I prefer Park Ji-Yoon to Nam Soo-Rim.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Park Ji-Yoon’s feather-light dream-pop hook is better in context than in fact; its candy-sweetness provides a distinct contrast to the sharp edges of Nam Soo-Rim’s rap. The effect isn’t too far removed from that Nicki Minaj attained on “Your Love,” which is fitting; there’s more than a bit of Minaj in Nam’s delivery. In all, the shimmer is lovely and nice to admire. (But that’s all.)
[6]

Iain Mew: The hazy pop-shoegaze elements kind of remind me of Faye Wong covering The Cranberries for Chungking Express, which is no bad thing, and then the track delightfully floats away to space at the end. Nam Soo-Rim’s rapping doesn’t interact with all of that so much, with the beat having to do a lot of bridging work, but this is one of those cases where two very different good things do work out together.
[8]

Brad Shoup: “Drive Me to the Moon” feels like trance on a shoegazer’s budget. Percussion is limited to a modest hip-pop backbeat, cricket sixteenths and lots of subliminal bass taps. Hip-hop love songs, to me anyway, are sweet for the telling; without a translation, I can’t say whether Nam approaches mooniness, but that final fanfare surely does.
[6]

And yes, we will be looking at the Sound of 2013 list at some point…

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[6.56]

Patrick St. Michel: Amy Kabba gets compared to K-Pop artists a lot, and it isn’t strange to see why — she has made her love for Korean music clear in various interviews and she wrote the song “Beautiful Stranger,” which was picked up the group f(x) earlier this year.  Her debut single doesn’t sound like K-Pop though, because “K-Pop” lacks any unifying sonic quality and is full of diverse styles. “Play The Game Boy” does, at times, capture the spirit of K-Pop, especially the stuff that’s attracted Western attention. Kabba’s unafraid to mix sounds together — here, she squares off with 90’s pop, hip-hop and chiptune (pretty much mandated with a title like that).  Yet what makes “Play The Game Boy” so great has nothing to do with similarities to music on the other side of the world — this is just incredibly catchy stuff, highlighted by the chorus and Kabba’s delivery of “I’m calling you out.” It’s great pop music that should not have to be held back by any geographical reasons.    
[9]

Iain Mew: A*M*E is in the BBC’s longlist for Sound of 2013. Maybe if she places well in the final list she’ll one day be as successful in the UK as Niki & the Dove! Then, since her being a K-Pop fan is central to a lot of coverage of her, we can look forward to more wrongness to follow on from most mainstream coverage of “Gangnam Style” and positive but dismissive live reviews seemingly designed to piss off Big Bang fans, rockists, and Beliebers in equal measure. I’m apprehensive not just out of general cynicism but because A*M*E’s K-Pop repping has to date resulted in widespread uncritical repeating of her calling her co-write on an f(x) B-side a number one hit in Korea, and in the video to this song, which sets off several Gwen Stefani style alarm bells. The song? It reminds me more of Oh My! with added punning video game bleeps than anything Korean, and its playfulness just about wins out over the limitation of its repetitiveness. I’m not sure I would have had much to say on it even if I hadn’t taken in all the baggage first.
[6]

Sabina Tang: Oh, geez, is this like Gwen Stefani’s Harajuku Girls now? Dubious over-enthusiasm for K-pop visual tropes aside though, the ’05-atavistic-throwback-to-’88-dance-pop groove is irresistible, so it’s a mystery that A*M*E manages to avoid cutting loose. (No evidence from her other tracks that she’s a belter, so maybe that’s it.) If she’d so much as thrown a few ad-libbed shrieks and trills into the outro this would shoot up to a [10]. As it is, climactic measured spoken-rap à la Neil Tennant is best left to Neil Tennant.
[8]

Brad Shoup: I love the production, but I don’t like the chorus at all. I just want to hear that synth swing.
[5]

Ian Mathers: For whatever reason, none of the hooks on this one landed with me, and yet… she seems immensely capable and likeable and I seriously suspect that she’ll make at least one song I really, really love in 2013.
[5]

Andy Hutchins: There’s an alternate universe where this is actually an Azealia Banks diss aimed at Jim Jones or something, and I wish I lived there, if only because Jim Jones reacting to a perfectly-sung “I’m calllllling yew OU-UT!” would be neat. In ours, this is one note stretched to beyond the breaking point, an unfunny joke (“Get it, Game Boy is in the title, and it sounds like a water-logged one being operated!”) that can’t totally be saved by the rest of the act (that pre-chorus, “Get my Madonner on and watch me vogue,” the Cher Lloyd-ish rap-sung bridge).
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: Addictive and sugar-rushy — though in a hi-NRG way rather than a K-pop way (not that that’s a huge distinction, necessarily) — with an irritatingly sticky chorus that will curdle into outright loathing if repeated too often for too long. With a runtime of three and a half minutes, she’s pushing it.
[7]

Will Adams: A*M*E steps up for “Play the Game Boy,” offering an impressive range within three minutes: the verses find her quick-footed and blustery, the pre-chorus is poised, and on the rapped middle eight she sounds exactly like Charli XCX. The whole time, however, she’s never upstaged by the chunky midtempo electro. Shame about that botched chorus, though.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: “Game Boy” is a red herring; there’s only as much chiptune per minute as your average Calvin Harris track. The chorus, then, is better parsed (and much less gimmicky) as “play the game, boy,” at which point the other red herring dies. K-pop? Sure — if it’s the subset of K-pop that sounds like amazing lost Mis-Teeq tracks. 
[7]

Amazon says it’s the best song of the year. What do we think?

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[7.00]

Patrick St. Michel: “Being young is way more fun than being old, and being a punk is way more fun that being a square,” goes the YouTube description for “California.” The accompanying clip stays true to that, but Delta Spirit’s actual song sounds like the product of growing up and being unafraid to express deeply uncool sentiments. “I want you to move to California for yourself/I want you to find whatever your heart needs,” before singer Matthew Vasquez emphasizes this person should be doing it for themselves, “and not for me.” The music chugs ahead the whole time, morphing from melancholy surf rock to a swelling Arcade-Fire-lite climax. It matches the realization at the center of “California” wonderfully — letting someone go for their own good can be tough at first, but ultimately liberating. That’s a lesson that comes from age.
[8]

Josh Langhoff: Any given year the local AAA radio station is good for one bittersweet rocker that motorvates and rends hearts. Previous titles include the Foo Fighters’ “Long Road to Ruin” and Brett Dennen’s “Sydney (I’ll Come Running),” and “California” belongs in their company even if it doesn’t totally slay. It moves blockily from bit to bit, but adventurous guitar and synth dissonances help with the rending. Much better than all those floor-stomping acoustic collectives hellbent on taking over the format with their God hollers.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Upon hearing this was Amazon’s song of the year, and was indie-rock, I prepared myself to deploy a whole slew of uncomplimentary adjectives with vigour. Then it started with damn “Take On Me” drums and the chorus had iterations of “ooh” that betrayed real weary longing and regret and I got sucked in like a floppy-haired, skinny-jean wearing wimp. The charging bass and overdriven guitars made me compare this (favourably) to Longwave, with a bit of bloody “Dakota.” Matthew Vasquez is a better and more empathic singer, though, so while it ticks the “kind of lame” box, it’s also surprisingly heart-tugging. It’s a big gloopy cry-fest you can (slightly) rock out to as well.
[9]

Anthony Easton: Gorgeous and well constructed, and the lyrics are fantastically anti-utopic, while still maintaining the idea of California as a place of personal liberation. 
[8]

Will Adams: The ulterior motives are on full display here; it’s in those Beach Boys harmonies after the verses, and the beautiful guitars, which sound like they’re being played from the bottom of a well. The underhandedness may be off-putting, but damn if this doesn’t remind me of cruising on PCH as the summer sun descends into the Pacific. 
[8]

Brad Shoup: This thing is produced like a motherfucker. The guitars explode, the drums patter like a-ha. And it puts a fine cap on a great year in concern-matchmaking. The twist is she’s too good to be with him, but he still knows what’s best for her. Gross.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: I’m always up for Californian modern rock groups behaving as if the mere act of being on the West Coast is a spiritual experience (c.f. Phantom Planet, Coconut Records), but Arcade Firing up the form doesn’t do it any favors. “I want you to move to California for yourself, but not for me,” Matthew Vasquez passive-aggresses over ringing guitars that only sort of soar and backing vocals that “ooooh-oooh” with at least half their might. The sentiment has the makings of a good pop chorus, but it can’t get there with so little heft behind it. Why would anyone move to California for Delta Spirit anyway?
[3]

Alfred Soto: I can almost look past the Julian-Lennon-meets-Gerry-Rafferty vocal lilt and the post-Bloc Party percussive breakdown… but can’t. They manage to make “I want you to move to California for yourself” sound imperious and mean.
[5]

Iain Mew: This is pure indie comfort listening. Every element is familiar. They’re also all so gorgeous sounding that they’re still more enchanting in total than I would have thought something sounding like this could be. Well, the singer is merely fine, but the vocals are just there to glide over the actually important bits, like I talked about with Ulises Hadjis. The synths give impetus and motion, the drums are as crisp as MIA.‘s, and the guitars simmer and rush and constantly thrill.
[9]

Ian Mathers: The noisy intro was good enough that the actual verses were a letdown the first time through, but by the end when all the “ooh ooh ooh”s kick during the verse in that whole thing gels, and on my first few listens I can’t detect any hint of passive-aggressive manipulation in “I want you to move to California for yourself, but not for me.” This might be the only time I’ve heard a guy in a band tell a woman that she’s better off without him that I’ve actually believed that he believes that. (Especially seeing as how he doesn’t reveal any misconduct on his part, which means the song reads for me like he just knows they’re at different places in their lives at the moment.) For one song at least, this seems like a guy trying to be a good guy and actually mostly succeeding, and that makes it surprisingly endearing.
[8]

Remind you of anyone?…

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[5.86]

Patrick St. Michel: First, I’m happy that, for the video to this song, Tuuli decided to borrow a bunch of ideas from Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s clip for “PonPonPon.” Not just because I love any excuse to post that, but because there is something heartening in knowing a 13-year-old Finnish girl watched the video for a song that at one point was number one on the Finnish iTunes charts and was inspired by it (this isn’t me making stuff up). Anyway, the music… is way less interesting to write about. It’s bouncy electro-pop locked into one groove and content to follow it for the whole song. Worth an extra point for the “ah ha ah ha,” but that’s about it. 
[5]

Will Adams: Why does this rather good song have a 71% disapproval rating on YouTube? It’s not the music, which I suspect might actually be a Body Talk demo, all sparkly synthbeds an pathos. It’s not the lyrics, which, according to rough translation, are actually quite sad and moving: “No one gets to know… what my secrets are/Nevertheless there’s a storm inside me.” It’s not her voice, weak in places but for the most part expressive. It’s definitely not legions of Rebecca Black stans who claim the video cribs from “Friday”‘s (though really, the classroom bits are less “Friday” and more fellow Ark alum Alana Lee). It might be legions of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu stans angered by the video’s admittedly blatant “Pon Pon Pon” references. But would that account for all of the ire directed at something so inoffensive? Maybe, though I suspect there may be something more sinister at play, and I don’t really want to find out what that is.
[7]

Iain Mew: I’m generally well disposed to Nordic synth-pop. This song initially struck me as a competent and bouncy example of it but just didn’t stand out, apart from being a bit more processed-sounding than normal. Then I watched the video, and experience the song tied to Tuuli realising her Kyary Pamyu Pamyu dreams enhanced it to the point where I now hear personality in the song that I didn’t before.
[7]

Brad Shoup: It’s got a great hook. And the translators score again (“I talk to people/some very famous words”). When she sings about secrets, the melody takes off; the exterior is saddled with monotone. If you want to make that a credit, go ahead. Another 30 plays and I might be on board.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: EXCLUSIVE JUKEBOX BEHIND-THE-SCENES REVEAL! Me, to the listserv, 3:05 a.m.: “WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME TUULI RELEASED A NEW SONG. Internet!” Me, to the listserv, 3:07 a.m.: “…actually, scratch that, it is Not The Band. Which would explain why nobody told me. MOVING RIGHT ALONG.” After I realized this wasn’t teenage pop-punk (what do you mean it wasn’t plausible? If Ashlee can pivot to this with “Bat for a Heart” after comparable years, couldn’t they? What do you mean it just means “wind”? Oh…) but teenage pop-viral, things naturally got disappointing. The track sounding like Robyn at half speed and half oxygen reassured me a little. But just a little.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: Pretty, twinkly, and not terrible competent: exactly what a thirtysomething dude who hasn’t listened to the radio since he was in middle school imagines all music aimed at thirteen-year-old girls sounds like. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it did; but it doesn’t. Not in the West, anyway.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Reportedly a huge viral craze in Finland, with nearly as many views as Finns, and almost no other exposure; all I can say is that if this is seen as laugh at loud funny, Finnish people either listen to far too much or far too little death metal. “Salaisuudet” is perky, loveable but forgettable dance pop, which puts it light years ahead of the sound it’s emulating. The video makes me glad that idolising Asian pop looks has spread to the northernmost extremes of Europe, and giddy with the thought of what the Nordics might do with it next. So I approve of this as a warning salvo, with the hope of greater things to come.
[6]

Everyone missed their chance to finally make an ELECTRONIC DUCK MUSIC joke…

[Video][Website]
[6.38]

Patrick St. Michel: Watch The Duck really want to be at the forefront of a new genre, possibly one they thought up themselves; “Poppin’ Off” has been labelled “SoulDubstep,” which would be self explanatory if this didn’t just sound like a dubstep song with a longer build up to the wobbly bits. They promote the fact they also play instruments and sing on their tracks, which would be nifty if the end result sounded drastically different than whatever else is being called EDM at the moment. The one moment where they’re on to something different is when the song swerves into a speedy section late in the song… joined by distant chorus… before suddenly slowing to a syrupy pace before ending with the song rewinding on itself. It’s genuinely interesting, more so than the stab at being “ahead of the curve” elsewhere on “Poppin’ Off.”
[5]

Ian Mathers: Just more proof that, like nearly any reviled musical element, those post-Skrillex drops and wubs work just fine when they’re part of the ingredients rather than the whole meal. (And sometimes even in the latter case, but that’s rarer.) Fine vocals, and the song gets into a hell of a groove in the middle, but the slowed-down interlude really kills the momentum and the song never really recovers.
[6]

Iain Mew: Yet another much better alternative to Alex Clare’s mix of dubstep + grizzled soul vocals. In this case the crucial difference is the benefit gained from having a sense of humour, the vworps and judders used inventively in a way that plays as much on how ridiculous they are as how forceful.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Laconic piano, hazy guitar, dubby bass: this could have gone in any of a few directions. Instead, they coalesce into dubstep (which, to their credit, sounds like bubbles poppin’ off). The vocals let the sunshine in: my preference is for complete phrases rather than pointillist R&B borrowing, and this has the good-natured tone of complaint of classic Joe Tex. The phases and stages promote their live-band bonafides, but make vehicular listening difficult.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Touches of dubstep, because it’s 2012, but this is hotter and stickier and rather more intoxicating. Sounds better than it should because I’ll take the monologue as a mantra and have it running around my head for days. Slowed down, chopped up, run backwards; “Poppin’ Off” has more tricks than it seems on the first listen, and it no doubt is going to bore people because it’s so… tasteful.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: The dubstep bits sound like pretty much every dubstep bits you’ve ever heard, and the shout-sung bits just kind of sit there, neither melodic nor furious enough to register as anything but sloganeering. I appreciate the attempt to add something like traditional musicianship to What The Kids Are Listening To, but the end result is kind of just a party-heartier Death Grips.
[6]

Will Adams: I’m all for fusion, but it requires a solid grasp of each genre that gets thrown into the pot. The funk is on point, but the dubstep often reads amateurish.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: You could SO troll Jack White fans with this. For that alone:
[8]