I’d be quite willing to let the rhythm get to me if it meant I got hair like MNEK’s out of the deal.

[Video][Website]
[6.11]

Ramzi Awn: Sick beat.  And MNEK knows how to let a vocal trip off his tongue.  By the time the hook sinks in, I’m sold, and the nuance in the production doesn’t fall on deaf ears.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Denser and more frenetic than has been his wont, MNEK eschews the chart flourishes to record a track that means what it says. If this crosses over like “Ready for Your Love,” then I know shit.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: His last single was about melody, this one’s about rhythm. Evidently, he’s a man who knows how to make music. If he could cook up a remix of this called “The Rhythm (And The Melody)”, that would be great.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: MNEK represents possibly the best example of a generational phenomenon in England; a group of kids who possess a love for dance music, but don’t treat it like dance music. Rather, they don’t make tracks for the dancefloor, they’re not so concerned about how it goes off in a club. Instead, they have their eye on the charts and the radio. House and other forms of dance music are less of a catering, more of an everything. Of course, this has its pluses and minuses. A dude like MNEK knows how to perfectly design his songs around the production he gets, but he crafts them strictly to be servicable and logical. They lack the surprise and confusion of people who don’t know how to make ‘proper’ songs, who just inevitably get themselves a hit from the people. Its a rare thing, to work too hard yet not hard enough at the same time.
[3]

Brad Shoup: It’s clever how he starts his vocal off on such tricky footing; by the time he touches solid ground it’s clear he’s gotten to the rhythm. But it also functions as the main melodic hook, and it just can’t bear both burdens. It’s quaint and slight celebration, filled with evidence of his gifts but not particularly generous. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: The rhythm, it seems, is light reggaeton, with all sorts of weird corners and a vocalise undulating like limbs. And MNEK knows to get out of its way, making the track functional as well as impressive.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I always feel like MNEK’s songs could function as demos for some faceless house diva, whom I am sure he would credit if he were to use her. But damned if he doesn’t always make them work for himself too; his voice’s surprising deepness doesn’t get in the way of his ability to sing his desires. In fact, as propulsive and rigorous as the house is on a track like “The Rhythm,” I feel like just the voice would convey the same thing by itself.
[8]

Will Adams: MNEK succeeds when the production matches his silken vocals. “Every Little Word” and “Close” had rounded edges that buttressed his voice to great effect. “The Rhythm” is a bit too angular, too focused on its title conceit, so it neglects MNEK’s voice and melody altogether.
[5]

Rebecca A. Gowns: The low rumble at the beginning is a great introduction to this multi-beat song (a sort of ur-rhythm). As the song builds, all the elements come together and marry well: the simple/soulful vocals, the bip-bop sounds, the standard house percussion that crackles and pops underneath the melody. The climax is fun, turning one long sustained note into a tunnel through the other side of the song; silence, a rush, then back to the tune! Nothing too innovative here, but why reinvent the wheel when it’s a damn good wheel?
[8]

All this after we didn’t even do Marit Larsen’s single too.

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Micha Cavaseno: Sounds like Kate Bush if her ambition had been sapped and then replaced by sap.
[2]

Alfred Soto: The track builds towards a piano and strings climax that’s one of the year’s best instrumental passages; the rest is soupy because it wants to hide its conventionality.
[6]

Iain Mew: “…so now it’s time to carry on” bursts in Raven, song fully formed, like it’s always been around. What comes after is solidly constructed and the arrangement is expansive and polished, but that exciting moment of being thrown in mid-flow is the one that most elevates the song.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Mover over, Delta Goodrem and Lucie Silvas! Oh, you did. Granted, Radio 2 have probably had at least one song that sounds exactly like this on their playlist every week since, but it’s about as redolent of 2004 as Little Britain. Goodrem’s and Silvas’ hits sound better than they did at the time, but even in another ten years this will be far too syrupy. It’s impressive, if anything: proof that there is such a thing as over-pleasant.
[5]

Brad Shoup: A fine valediction, sung as if from the perspective of… I dunno, one-half of a performing duo or something. Everyone’s just paddling toward that TV-movie ending, where the singers go slo-mo and all the etc. is covered in small white type. 
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Marion Raven’s first album was an unheralded high watermark of the Clarkson/Pink genre of girls with shiny guitars and big pop songs. It’s weird then to hear her grown up from that sound, itself a growing up from her M2M past, and settling comfortably in the kind of Bareilles/Goodrem inspirational balladry you always get the feeling she could have done in her sleep but never would have. It’s weird to hear her voice so devoid of anger. It’s nice that she’s picked up a wonderful arrangement, but it doesn’t sound especially like she believes in the song. For all that, the right placement in some TV drama and this is a global hit in waiting. And yep, it’s better than the lead single from Marit Larsen’s album.
[7]

Sorry, K, our phone was out of battery.

[Video][Website]
[5.57]

Michelle Ofiwe: Kelela always reminds me of the luscious, indulgent R&B of the 1990s — that “quiet storm” stuff that always comes on at 3am. I’m always in awe of how *rich* her voice in; there’s a warmth to her voice that comes across super smooth. The upside is that she’s also a whiz at linking up with collaborators who know how to handle her minimalist R&B style: Arca, Bok Bok, FADETOMIND, the list just continues to grow. I’m really hoping to hear more of whatever project this sultry cut slinked out of. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: If Tinashe stands at the peak and Jhene Aiko wanders through a fog of perfume at the base, then this is the nadir of laptop soul: aimless and signifying nothing beyond an interest in signifying something, maybe desire, maybe buying a club sandwich. I’m a sucker for this stuff. Often I need a week to distinguish the mediocre from the good.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Woozy and provocative like Aaliyah produced by James Blake, with awesome lyrics: this is what I’ve been hoping the new Pitchfork-approved strain of R&B would sound like, and maybe it’s finally getting there. How slow can you go? 
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: At his best, on Bjork’s Vulnicura, Arca produced tracks to sound like snuff films. Kelela is promisingly direct — “if I was your ex-girlfriend” — but this time the track is sterile, more like formaldehyde.
[5]

Brad Shoup: I appreciate the thought, but I wonder if A Song would’ve been better. Sharp vocals are converted to aerophone blats, a thick cover for Kelela to keep diving underneath. The stretched-out beat and listless hi-hats have no need to be here.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: I love the haphazardly-deployed whomp effects and the percussive way Kelela’s voice is layered; it’s like beholding tectonic plates moving or an iceberg break into bits. The song’s an immaculate yawn though.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: It’s funny how this single is both a reasonable step for Kelela but also involves contrasts. Arca’s surging contortionist music involves a certain malleability that the crudeness of the Night Slugs/Fade to Mind crew’s club pastiche never transcended, but his similar work for Twigs automatically comes to mind as the result. Kelela doesn’t attack this song like her old tape’s production required, but her abstract musings seem both more moored by gravity than her collaborator’s other R&B-influenced act, though still too frayed to serve as a conventional single. It displays ambition, talent, and a desire to challenge. Yet I still get tired of this proggish doom-soul sound; for all their enigmatic craft, the artists developing this form rarely go into extremity. Like, I’m talking Tim Buckley, Yma Sumac level vocal departure from the earthly plane. Instead, Kelela just seems to kick a foot up against the air above her, dreaming of disturbing the heavens above. Its nice, and it’s certainly a curious realm to bear witness to, but I’d like to see someone really shove off the cliffs and dive into the unknown sometime. Those are the kind of people I’d love to follow.
[6]

TBQH, we kinda wish we hadn’t come back from the weekend…

[Video][Website]
[3.30]

Thomas Inskeep: Alicia Keys is the Grammys’ dream: a “proper” R&B singer/songwriter/piano player who makes records boring enough for middle-aged white record executives. John Legend is, by and large, the male Alicia Keys, albeit a better singer. And Sam Smith is the trifecta: the gay, British male version, only with less soul. Which is why he won all those Grammys a couple months ago. Keys and Legend are at least capable of roughing up their sound a bit; Smith is far too squeaky-clean for such nonsense. Accordingly, he drags Legend down with him. And furthermore, this’ll likely win a boatload of Grammys in 2016. I doubt I’ll hear a more boring single all year.
[0]

Alfred Soto: A crossover effort by a guy who didn’t need a crossover, a pop validation for an R&B singer who before “All of Me” had only himself to blame for never getting anyone to give a damn; this horror gets pounded into meat sauce until it’s not even recognizable as gravy. I know for damn sure that Chris Brown and Nicki Minaj would have begged for the shows of soul.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: Only a cynic could resist this mucus-gooey romantic display. And as it turns out, I am just that cynic. I think Lite FM just wet the bed.
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: Decades ago, when you had an insufferable Brit proving they had soul after surprising crossover success by hiring a recognizable icon, you had George Michael and Aretha Franklin. Now, you get Sam Smith and John Legend. As per usual, Smith is the epitome of saccharine portentousness, while John Legend makes noises that sound like someone whining in pain as they linger in a hospital ward after painkillers. Did you hear that falsetto? What the hell was that shit? What we have is a case of two overly mannered egomaniacs, one whose astonishing lack of talent continues to baffle me to this day, kiss their own reflections as if their ego were their own child. And grossly enough, we get invited along to watch. No thanks, guys.
[2]

Iain Mew: Sam Smith has now scored three UK #1s from his first album. He’s partly benefited from not having any one song so monumentally popular as to hamper later releases, but it’s still some feat. The last to manage the same was Bruno Mars; if I’ve researched correctly the last Brit to do so was Will Young. Let’s hope Smith some day produces a “Leave Right Now” then, because “Lay Me Down” is as horrible as “Evergreen.”
[2]

Michelle Ofiwe: This is a record Sam could have carried on his own. (Perhaps I’m still feeling John Legend fatigue from “All of Me”‘s assault on radio last year.) Legend does sound nice here, but Smith clearly blows it out of the water with that intro. However, I am a little confused by the sudden change in tempo — the song becomes a jaunt that doesn’t really match the subject matter. I’m sure that won’t matter to either star when the song makes an appearance on either of their setlists. 
[6]

Abby Waysdorf: The first minute and a half of this is absolutely sublime. The thing about Smith is that for all he has A Voice, it’s never entirely about showing off its technical qualities — at his best, he’s feeling everything, giving him an affective edge that’s often lacking in pop stars that are known for their voices. This affective edge (occasionally shading into melodrama, which I’m mostly fine with) makes him most effective in two modes — either the dance music he was first introduced with, or the sparseness that makes up this starting minute and a half, where it’s just a few piano chords shading that high, aching richness. The trappings of more mainstream balladry tend to make him a little too banal, when there’s the potential to be much more interesting. The 30 seconds of Smith’s voice almost breaking, with the piano resonating in the background, points to what that might be. This version of “Lay Me Down” wisely strips back the overblown strings of the album version, which tipped it too far into schmaltz even for me. It also makes it a duet, adding in mainstream pop’s other favorite ballad-maker in John Legend. While Legend isn’t quite the vocalist Smith is, he helps to focus the song on the piano, and he adds a nice groundedness to Smith’s soaring. Making it a duet also adds another narrative layer to the unrequited yearning that has generally made up Smith’s persona. Is there yet hope?
[8]

Anthony Easton: It bugs me how much I hate Sam Smith’s bleating, yet I love John Legend’s crooning — it might be a love for cocktail piano; or it might be this weird, residual authenticity problem; or some nugget of unprocessed queer construction that I don’t want to dissect just yet. Having them sing together makes me think that I might be overestimating Legend and underestimating Smith, which proves the producer did an excellent job at synthesis. 
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: A cataclysm of safe. Red Nose Day used to facilitate things like Mandy Dingle cavorting to a Billy Ocean cover. This year it’s an unabashed vehicle for dozeballad bulldozers. Nothing is sacred. It’s a strange choice of release for an organisation called Comic Relief, but most inexplicable is the continued sale of the original, not-for-charity version that has led to it charting simultaneously with this. What’s more, it’s barely even a duet anyway, just two men singing the same song as if in separate rooms — almost impressive given that they were in the same one. Perhaps they recognised that it wasn’t a song that called for chemistry, and thus railed valiantly against it? It wouldn’t have been difficult; when it eventually escapes its plod and transforms into a Weekndish performance piece, there’s a hint at multiplicity of meaning, or feeling, or something, but alas, it’s mostly nothing.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Two is the loneliest hour that I’ll ever do.
[2]

Hitting the snooze…

[Video][Website]
[3.50]

Thomas Inskeep: It’s like Muse trying to sound like the Bay City Rollers. Prog-disco?
[2]

Alfred Soto: Weren’t their songs faster ten years ago?
[3]

David Sheffieck: “That was then but this is now/And what’s really changed” just begs to be made a lame punchline, but the fact is that it obscures the truth: “Ruby” may have been maddeningly omnipresent in my college radio days, but it at least had a solid hook. The Kaiser Chiefs of 2015 just have an anemic synth line and thinner, hoarser vocals. As changes go, that’s not the best kind to make. But apparently it’s an easy one to miss.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: As a late-career move, settling down as a festival band is not a bad choice. And for a band such as Kaiser Chiefs, whose high points have always been designed to be screamed back at them by a blob of humanity, it’s a natural move. Still, might be a good idea to make “Falling Awake” actually fun to sing along with.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: What the Kaiser Chiefs perceive as a brave (by their standards) step into electronic pop touches is actually a not brave and quite pathetic revival of early 2000s British boy band sounds. Yes, stand up Phixx, your critical rehabilitation starts here. Only this is about one-fifth the tune Phixx’s “Hold On Me” was.
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: I like how a decade later, these hacks now sound like some of the other bands from a decade ago. This is pretty much a terrible Rooney song playing on *NAME REDACTED*’s myspace while I try to impress them with the bare vestiges of my humor while I wonder if its worth it to read Chuck Palahniuk (never made the jump, thank goodness). The trick is, it isn’t worth it, same way as it wasn’t worth this song being made.
[3]

Brad Shoup: “Falling” is the hack’s verb choice. Does “falling awake” mean he’s waking up? Or that he’s falling, but at least he’s aware he’s doing so? Seventy-eight repetitions of the phrase bring me no closer to an answer. But this is a band that chooses to foreground the crap spooky synth hook and banish the boring rhythm guitar to the background for contrast, so maybe there’s nought to be found.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Who says going on The Voice is a fool’s errand? (Don’t answer that.) Making the case for the defence is Ricky Wilson, sneakily reemerging like a mini Lazarus, in time for a lot of people not to have realised he’d gone. Bearing panicky synths, this is possibly the most electrocentric Kaiser Chiefs single to date, and with the repetition, possibly the most hook-reliant. With the occasionally outright objectionable “commentary” given a swerve, all eggs are in one basket, but the resulting disoriented lament works.
[7]

Monday, we’ve got Friday on our mind…

[Video][Website]
[2.50]

Anthony Easton: English country has existed for decades: they have taken Dolly Parton as one of their one (see the Glastonbury show last year), the Beatles absorbed Buck Owens, the Mekons absorbed punk rock, the folk revival scavenged and returned the West Country diaspora, Richard Thompson talked to Elvis Costello about Hank Williams, line dancing is popular in the north of England. It’s a huge scene, not as huge as Norway or Germany, but big enough. This full scale absorption of Nashville’s sound, then, is much less surprising than it might be. Crissie Rhodes, half of this band, did well enough on X-Factor, and it seems to be a foregone conclusion that reality shows reward country more than other genres. As opposed to the rest of those examples, I worry this song rewards a Nashville monoculture, but it’s pleasant.  
[4]

Iain Mew: The first few times I saw the name I mistook them for The Shirehorses, but no, it’s something more unlikely to see in the UK album charts: British country. I quite like their “Nashville Grey Skies” and its earnest message that they won’t let their pedal steel sleep in their hand until they’ve built Nashville in England’s green and pleasant land. “Friday Night” and its indistinguishable drinking-song moves just suggest that they succeeded all too well.
[3]

Josh Love: Show’s over, American-made pop country. The British Invasion is here. Soon the likes of Miranda Lambert and Toby Keith will seem as charmingly quaint as Dion and Gary U.S. Bonds did to Beatlemaniacs, now that The Shires have arrived. OK, so maybe that’s not what’s going on here at all, but “Friday Night” is still a charming little tune that suggests this UK duo has cannily studied the likes of Little Big Town and The Band Perry. They might have even slipped a little Vampire Weekend into the rotation; that hiccuping repetition of “night” at the end of the chorus hits the same sweet spot of slightly grating goofiness as the pitch-shifting in “Ya Hey.”
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: The person who will hear this and decide, “yah know, The Shires are right, it is OK for me to get a little drunk on a Friday night” either should most certainly not be getting a little drunk or would be an absolute bore to be around in any state. This sounds as tedious as the working week it seeks to let off steam from.
[2]

Will Adams: This sounds like your boss putting on a Hawaiian shirt, slapping you on the back and thrusting a beer in your hand at 4:59pm, encouraging you to “live a little” — a cheap, unconvincing plot to obscure just how dull and tedious the office is.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Yeah, that squeak on the end of the chorus is the sound of the Saturday morning buzzer on your alarm waking you and making you realize you made a gigantic mistake in making it through this song. I need one of those hangover cures that tastes like asphalt. Ugh.
[2]

Alfred Soto: All you blue staters dissing country for jocking hair metal riffs? Here’s Jim Beam vomit in your eye. Instead of riffs, The Shires offer a banjo that could’ve been a Synclavier sample. Instead of attitude, I get an office assistant sloshed on his first Manhattan at 4:30.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Are songwriters so hard up that they need to go to the ’90s adult-alternative-rock well? That soggy pneumatic drum sound never sounded good. And a hook should never involve these poor kids keening like cockatoos.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: Reminds me of a bro-ier take on Shawn Mullins’s “Lullaby,” with some dated beats straight out of 1999 and lyrics about the weekend being fun rather than everything being alright. Well done on a successful proof of concept, Britishes, but fuck you and don’t do it again.
[0]

Thomas Inskeep: Congratulations, Britain: you’ve produced a homegrown country act that sounds just as boring as the most mediocre Nashville band. Actually, worse. 
[1]

All about the brass.

[Video][Website]
[6.22]

Mo Kim: This would have no problem hopping over to North America: just let Amber drop a few verses in English, sub in Taeyeon and her ebullience for Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez, and watch the basketball beats, dollar-store horns and jangly percussion do the rest of the magic. Tacky and overstuffed in the same way Carvel ice cream cake is, this floats on the tightness of its composition and the percussive/emotive ability of its two respective singers.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Based on this, Amber and Taeyeon should form a duo and fill the hole left by the retirement of A-game Gwen Stefani, and render Iggy Azalea obsolete in the non-American female rapper crossover star stakes. There’s just so much bounce and charisma here. This isn’t an overstuffed banger; it’s a banger stuffed to near-perfection  I am also allocating extra kudos because the “na-na-na-na” bit reminds me of comical UK flop group All*Stars’ “Things That Go Bump in The Night.”
[9]

Micha Cavaseno: The weirdest part is Taeyeon’s spotlight moment and dashes of “Yeah” in the song: an odd distraction from fun and funky Amber’s solo single is. Given that f(x) have been navigating themselves into SERIOUS territories, an artier, more elusive cousin to their megapop rivals, it’s great to know just how casual and chipper “Shake That Brass” has turned out. The production is all Alice In Wonderland-style trapdoor plummets into bouncy castles, and Amber’s effortless technique is finally getting a real showcase. The virtuosity in her hands is smoother than, say, the tire-peeling grinds of the average male K-Pop rapper, and she radiates the charisma that comes from being the most unique visual presence of her group and field. Great to see that such individuality can translate into the recognition of her own moment to shine.
[7]

Alfred Soto: And some brass it is. As the anniversary pieces for Arular crash on the shore, let’s appreciate these continental cross-pollinations
[7]

Iain Mew: I like the way “better get that brass ready” comes after the entrance of the brass, as if to emphasises how feeble it is. That feebleness is a problem for a track built around the brass, no matter how great and versatile your singer is.
[4]

Jessica Doyle: “Shake that brass” is not a good enough pun to survive being repeated 22 times in three minutes (and yes, Hyuna got away with something similar, but the punning of “Red” was funnier and more daring). I am going relatively high to acknowledge this song’s role as a gateway towards more adorable Amber/Ailee bromance moments, but more importantly towards the next track on the mini, “Love Run“. Which is gorgeous and urban — and I mean “urban” not as a dog-whistle but as a nod to the song’s actual sense of place, its geographic contextualization of its pleading — to put it another way: there’s a reason why Frank Kogan keeps praising songs by referring to the almost-quiet of a street outside a Manhattan club at 2 am in the mid-1980s. And “Love Run” wouldn’t have worked as a single on its own (sadly), so I’m glad SM played it safe for the opener.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: The wonky brass hooks of “drunk octopus” fame come to life as their precise descriptive and sonic equivalent. With something so vibrant yet controlled, Amber and Taeyeon make a virtue of not really going anywhere.
[7]

Brad Shoup: “Better get that brass ready,” she says while it plays. At the bari sax knows how to double a good horn line.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: Any letdown is a result of expecting anything special at all. Amber seems way more interesting a person than this song’s generic party-up lyrics and horn-centric music (plus..that “hey ho” thing, let’s leave that in the past). “Brass” sounds fine, a little playful but ultimately coming off more like a statement of arrival. But this confidence sounds like a Xerox and doesn’t tell me why Amber stands out from the pack.
[5]

Imagine the reverse: The Weeknd – “Eden xo.”

[Video][Website]
[3.33]

Katherine St Asaph: After being unceremoniously recycled by Max Martin and Britney Spears (they made up, or at least she opened for her), having the ripped song covered by Heidi Montag, releasing tracks ranging from good to OK to horribly overwritten, from 2010 electro to Xenomania to whatever the hell this was, Jessie Malakouti has finally scored something resembling a hit by… emulating Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” I don’t understand anything. One point because having previously heard all the preceding singles makes me actually sorta believe her, or because I guess I’m just that much of a Shut Up Stella fan.
[1]

Will Adams: It makes Meghan Trainor seem tolerable by comparison.
[2]

Edward Okulicz: The thing about “Friday” was that the chorus was not just its best bit but legitimately good. This chorus just has me wanting to age 30 years so I can have a walking stick to shake it at Jessie Malakouti while yelling at her to act her damned age.
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: The audio equivalent of the campaign to reclaim being a basic. Those interludes preceding the verses are the kind of things that cause people to turn into those little toy collapsing fox guys. You hear this and just think “Man, what the point is?” and give up, because somebody apparently gave up even TRYING to think of a good song here.
[1]

Iain Mew: Started from the bottom, now we about level with Cher Lloyd at her worst.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The sparkling arrangement — harpsichord and synthesized marimba — suggests a Vampire Weekend track spit polished and offered to any producer who still thinks “Friday” deserves further emulation. Eden xo does.
[5]

Crystal Leww: “The Weekend” could draw a million comparisons without anything really sticking: could be Miley without the wild-eyed earnestness, could be Bonnie McKee without the winking self-awareness, heck, could even be Katy Perry without the smash hit producers. In other words, “The Weekend” is inferior to a lot of things.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: The Rugrats gone trap vibe sounds even creepier than it reads, and I can’t tell whether the character in this is middle-class or just low-tier celebrity (who has a team up in Paris?). But can’t deny that late song bridge.
[5]

Brad Shoup: I’m glad she mentioned tamales cuz this is the corniest thing I’ve heard this year.
[7]

Do we want to want him?

[Video][Website]
[5.80]Crystal Leww: This is basically a Maroon 5 song, who lately has been using “Sugar” to benefit from the current wave of ’70s nostalgia that our little prince Bruno Mars has brought in with Mark Ronson. I’m not mad; it turns out that I like “Sugar,” and it turns out I like “Want to Want Me” too.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: “It’s too hard to sleep, got the sheets off the bed, nothing on me, and I can’t take it no more, it’s 100 degrees” — a relatable Jason Derulo song! Except I don’t know why he thinks someone else in the bed is going to improve matters; unless they have really good A/C you’re either in for a 4 a.m. walk of shame (or, given that he’s a dude, walk of douche) outta the bed furnace, or a sexy sexy night of feeling like you’ve been cursed by a vengeful sweat-nausea-and-insomnia god. So having Been There Often, and dreading the start of summer, here is some advice to help poor Jason sleep: a) Fans on the bed. Like one at the foot of the bed, one by your neck. You’re Jason Derulo, you can afford the big industrial kind even. b) Fuck a Chillow, go for one of those cooling pads they recommend for women in menopause. c) Soak a bunch of towels in ice-cold water, wrap them in ice, and drape them around your shoulders and back. d) Lie on something stone or metal for a minute or so until you feel both pathetic and warm again. e) Stop trying to be Maroon 5. That won’t affect the room temperature. It’s good advice.
[4]

Will Adams: More a blank slate than a chameleon, Jason Derulo has now had at least seven genres painted on him in order to satisfy current trends. This time it’s a purée of “Jealous” and “Sugar,” all lite-disco and falsetto and adoring of its subject. It’s derivative, sure, but it’s also bright, reasonably catchy, and possibly the best setting for Derulo’s minimal charisma.
[6]

Mo Kim: Jason Derulo is like the ex-boyfriend you can’t hate because, fine, he picked out that fancy outfit in two minutes and the bouquet of flowers he plucked from the neighbor’s garden reeks of improvised thoughtfulness. But damned if that high note in the bridge doesn’t make me giggle and shiver a little; damned if “get up next to you” doesn’t make me want to jump up right here and now; damned if those bargain-bin synths don’t have groove; damned if he doesn’t make you want him as much as he wants himself. Half-assed all around but brownie points for charm.
[6]

Luisa Lopez: I put stock in things like the first day it feels like spring; when Manhattan melts; the sound of small bodies passing through the water of a fire hydrant; reaching into your pocket, your hand filling, a bundle of pennies; root beer; the unexpected kindness of boys. This sounds like every single one of them.
[8]

Anthony Easton: A summery, bubbly ode to sex, built on decades of pop desire but without the self-conscious formalism of “Uptown Funk” or even late Pharrell — even if the falsetto is a little bit Michael Jackson.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: That’s how Derulo goes: in medias res. Sheets on the floor, immediacy as ever. It’s not the immediate trauma of “I only miss you when I’m breathing,” but once again, allowing for a paratextual signature, he takes you right into his feelings and inside his head. Through the self-evident “In My Head,” suggestions that “you could be my it girl,” and the glorious desperation of “The Other Side,” that’s exactly where many of Jason Derulo’s songs take place. “Want to Want Me” is buoyant enough to suggest it may progress beyond that, but for the moment he waits, as he does best. The ineffable serenity of the “oohs” is no cheap trick.
[7]

Alfred Soto: I like this, which hurt a little because his last couple of singles were garbage. The sampled “ah” fools me into thinking it’s going to turn into “Need You Tonight,” and the falsetto is so high because Derulo is sizing up Adam Levine and liking what it sees, but even so the rudimentary hook and beat won me over. My advice to the Marooned 5: dump the itchy Adam Levine and consider this dude.
[7]

Brad Shoup: What hooked me first were those heavy-gated major-key synthrods on the refrain; it’s the same thing that happened with Karmin’s “Brokenhearted” eventually. But his looseness with the beat completely sold me. It could mean he was billed for 20 minutes’ studio time, or — I’d prefer — Jason’s growing into something more than a guy who makes pop hits. Maybe he’s a pop star, able to bury Adam Levine at his own late game, able to make that Nile Rodgers stroke sound like just another element.
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: NOBODY WANTS YOU dude. NOBODY. KNOWS. WHO. YOU. ARE. Your biggest hits rely on whistles and stupid fake klezmer bro music. Now you’re hitting us with indie electro-disco and a falsetto so garbage that the Autotune is showing definitive signs of strain in trying to make this sound feasible. It sounds like Trey Songz if Trey had the mistaken ambition to make a Maroon 5 song. Somebody stop the gigolo polyglot (copyright of Daniel Montestinos-Donaghy circa 2013) once and for all.
[1]

Yes, today’s theme was People We’ve Loved Before But Now Slightly Less So…

[Video][Website]
[6.29]

Brad Shoup: Surely there’s a bit of inspiration from Björk’s “Human Behavior” — the timpani working melodically, and the syncopated snare. This, plus the meta reference to drums, makes this a floorfiller in Brun’s world. She does a diva inversion, projecting confidence while crouching in the corner. It’s not exactly a buffalo stance, but it’ll kick around my brain for a little bit today.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Almost twenty seconds of something that sounds like an abstracted piano and timpani, before the angular voice of Ane Brun cuts through the music. Through the rest of the track, she rests lithely against the twinkle and the thump. It is so well constructed, glassy, isolated, and beautiful. When she starts counting steps, the work becomes corporeal, when she repeats it, it is less of a chorus than a movement through a chilling rain. Ending it with a cymbal just makes the whole thing shine. 
[10]

Will Adams: The tumbling drums are the star, and Ane Brun navigates its bold texture like she does it every day. But with all the emphasis on the “beat of the drum,” I wonder why anyone thought to add a New Age spa piano.
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: What is that vibrato? You’re going for some kind of soul inflection, and you’re ending up with trembling grandma. This production is so limpid, yet despite doing very little musically its very full of itself and puffs out its chest more than a few times off the merits of what? OOOH, you threw in some dramatic sounding piano! Oh my days, are those… Are those ACOUSTIC BASS SOLOS? How bold! Never mind this middle-school poetry about wet shoes and trying to take that step. You didn’t even take the step. You’re making a big show of doing fuck all.
[2]

Jonathan Bogart: It would be hard to make a song more directly aimed at certain of my pleasure centers: a dance song, but with jazz instrumentation; archly removed but with an aching heartbeat just under the chilly surface; delivered in a wintry soprano. The fact that my mantra for the past half-dozen years has been “one foot in front of the other,” and that I can now trade it out for “step three…step…step four…step (bass solo),” is only icing on the cake.
[9]

Iain Mew: I still love her voice and there’s hints of the chilling tension she’s previously excelled in, but this one goes a bit step-by-step. The music is just too tightly controlled to match the vivid images, with too many careful details not adding up to that much force.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Ane Brun’s quavery vocal brushes aganst fairygloss pianos and jazz bass like they’re wind chimes. It’s its own little musical world, as removed from its peers as Narnia’s removed from your wardrobe, and it’s more magical that way.
[6]