Maybe they’d like to hang with CL?

[Video][Website]
[6.83]

Thomas Inskeep: This South African hip-hop dream team is on some srsly hot shit. Bumping a super-synthetic bassline that nearly sounds ripped from a Yarbrough & Peoples record, AKA takes the lead, and each of the guys here tell us why he and his girl are “the baddest team.” But the sum is that AKA, Burna Boy, Khuli Chana, and Yanga themselves are the baddest team: this is the best posse cut I’ve heard in some time. 
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: Production is pretty solid and slick, and deceptive in how multi-layered it can be; I almost didn’t catch the Seals & Crofts sample embedded within. As far as appearances go, AKA is a bore with his verses sounding like an adolescent Jay-Z, Yanga is p. chill, Burna’s tone on his hooks and verse is a nice blend of the human rough with the chromed-out smooth, and Khuli’s flow absolutely tears the track the fuck up. “Baddest” is really a jam, its just ironic that the man we’re here for is the least exciting element at play.
[7]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: This guy did the smart thing and released a crew song right after releasing a (perceived) diss track, ’cause you gotta show ’em who’s with you. The bouncy bassline and the dub drumfills make a good combination with AKA’s hooks, but it’s Nigeria’s Burna Boy who outshines everybody in here, even when Yanga made a “Twalatsa” reference in his verse. I still believe the song is a bit too long, and Khuli Chana’s part should have come earlier, but those E-minor pentatonic melodies catch me every time.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The electrobass and finger snaps bear the marks of a Mustard production, but he wouldn’t have added the timbales. It would be Saturday night if a couple of those choruses weren’t so long.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Burbling, sauntering, and ceaselessly fluent, this is complete, reciprocal pleasure: indulgent yet inclusive. They’re having so much fun that they draw proceedings out for perhaps slightly too long, but it’s hard to blame them.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Future historians of pop will divide their past into Pre- and Post-Auto-Tune eras. Opinions will, naturally, differ on whether the shift represented the next stage in humanity’s glorious evolution or the tragic fall from a state of prelapsarian grace; but more importantly, Auto-Tune will be understood as a synecdoche for the increased globalization and borderlesness of pop. Those whose ears are unable to adapt, who hear Auto-Tune and automatically tune out, will miss the expansive, deeply funky joys of songs like this one.
[7]

But how do we feel about meat?

[Video][Website]
[6.38]

Scott Mildenhall: Shakka’s final exclamation that “I HOPE SHE LIKES MEAT!” is a lyric to rival “we’re high-fiving Jesus!” as the year’s best. It’s a broad payoff, but the song as a whole is brilliantly crafted: a fully rounded story in which nothing really happens. That is always something to strive for and to build on, and in augmenting his night-in-the-life vignette with a retrofuturist remodelling of a hitherto underutilised sitting duck of a sample, Shakka has definitely managed the latter.
[7]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Were Shakka and grime veteran JME trying to make Britain’s answer to Fetty Wap? Cause they kinda pulled it off. Shakka’s song has the inmediacy and some of the awkwardness that made Trap Queen special — that “tasty meat” line, come on — but it’s the guitar riff on top of that big bassline what really drives the track forward. It meets the one requirement for a great riff: It’s fun to play.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Shakka sounds good, JME sounds better (I can listen to good British rappers all day long), the track is solid (that Spandau sample is delightfully odd and off-kilter), but Shakka’s lyrical sentiments are junk, especially insisting that he’s “looking for a freak, someone who likes tasty meat.” Ew.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: My usual jaundiced skepticism about lads on the prowl for, uh, lasses was mollified by a well-placed synth riff (Spandau Ballet? okay sure), but the crowing whoops at the end were what really endeared me to the song. Not that high spirits is a blanket excuse for treating women like things, but given the parameters of the genre, I’d rather hear joy than mope.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Spandau Ballet’s most lasting moment was writing a riff on which PM Dawn would base a beautiful song, and the riff from “To Cut a Long Story Short” manipulated like soft Play-Doh deserved a smutty setting. Nothing much here though. It’s long past the time when a woman gets the affectionate sobriquet “freak” for liking meat.
[4]

Megan Harrington: The conceit of the cuckolded/dumped/oversexed narrator who heads out for a night of hopeful debauchery is nothing more than a red herring, a netted trap that snares all those unsuited for the club and suspends them overhead from a sturdy tree branch. After that glitch and static Shakka unspools one of the most infectious, lit from within, cut for the dance floor anthems released this year. “Say Nada” demands you enjoy your company, you give thanks to the night, and you allow yourself tactile pleasures. 
[10]

Micha Cavaseno: An irritating nasal tone that matches his weird guitar riff in his production, Shakka has his pluses and his minus. The way he remarks his situation’s “peak” is a big snipe in the world of Drakk’s Boy Betta Know’s tattoo represents clumsy and clammy-handed mishandling of the eternally unspoken parts of the UK. Speaking of BBK, JME is here! And his guest verse is pretty awkward and goofy, but has typical moments of Adenuga-brand endearment. But Shakka himself is equally clumsy with a lot less of the charm or character. And the meat stuffs is… not choice, fam. Mans not really trying to hear about that star.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Shortly after Richard X mangled Spandau Ballet’s “Chant No. 1,” I created a loop of the good bit of “To Cut A Long Story Short” in CoolEdit and knew someone would do something great and pop with the idea. It’s taken long enough, and this isn’t quite great, but it makes smart use of the interpolation. The Spandau track was always flimsy and over-reliant on its hook, but “Say Nada” weaves it in and out of the track without it fatiguing. Shakka’s conversational verses are springy and light in the ear too, so much so that it’s a surprise that this is actually rather less intense than its source material. Spandau Ballet never had no one-liners about tasty meat either.
[7]

But will this make her the Next Carrie Underwood?

[Video][Website]
[5.33]

Alfred Soto: “It has received positive reviews for her ‘flirtatious age-appropriate lyrics.’” That’s a lot of hype to live down.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Pretty aces: Alaina has a good voice, and “Next Boyfriend” is a good song, produced sympathetically. Proof that “young country” doesn’t have to be dirty words, because this targets a younger demographic smartly.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Taylor Swift’s dynamics weren’t what made her one of the most interesting country songwriters of the last decade, but that’s the easiest thing to replicate for the next generation.
[5]

Megan Harrington: Alaina borrows from Sam Hunt’s “Ex To See” hook liberally, swapping ex for next like a quill pen tipped in the general direction of plagiarism. Still, these days everything sounds like something and better it be something good than the pickled strains of authentic country. 
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: This unfolds near apocalyptically, with its slow pace and big vocal moments. Which is fine, except I’m not sure it really matches up with the lyrics at all and should maybe make whoever Lauren Alaina is addressing run for higher ground. 
[4]

Will Adams: The chorus announces itself like it’s some crushing revelation, but it’s more like a belly flop onto the obvious. Like most Idol alumni, Lauren Alaina hits all the technical checkboxes but few more.
[5]

Anthony Easton: I love how she sings “white T-shirt,” and the Sam Hunt-worthy swagger. It gets even better near the first bridge where it speeds up into a perfect pop-country chorus. 
[8]

Edward Okulicz: She’s certainly listened to Taylor Swift’s way with phrasing (I’m thinking “Wonderland” peeks out through the chorus). Alas, this needs a spark of her own and a modicum of restraint rather than hanging the climax on whether you care about her high notes, which feels like a sop to her Idol past than the pop present she’s going to struggle mightily in.
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: Soothsayer and observer Lauren comes through with the predictable country-pop backing and the determination that sells a kind of connect-the-dots single as well as one can. To her credit, she does it lyrically and she does it musically, but it wouldn’t hurt to squiggle those lines up a little with some kind of stamp of personal affect.
[4]

Comeback all over your doink! Will Craig re-re-rewind the clock on his popularity? Could literally go on for 7 days like this…

[Video][Website]
[7.00]

Thomas Inskeep: Well of course Craig David sounds great on this: it’s basically a UK garage track from 2002, and nothing is more his forte. There’s even a throwback to his smooth ‘n’ silky debut on Artful Dodger’s “Re-Rewind” (“all over your–“), for Pete’s sake. Big Narstie drops a perfectly solid grime verse in the middle of the proceedings, but frankly this ain’t about him. 
[6]

Megan Harrington: Empire‘s Jamal so desperately wants to be Craig David. The slick futurism of “When the Bassline Drops” is a sound that feels nestled in the early ’00s, a first taste of adulthood that promised enamel furniture and lofted sight lines. Pop music has trended bigger, more cartoonish, more colorful, and more dystopian since. A show like Empire, though it’s all those things and more, can’t lets its decorative touches — its original songs — get lost on the cutting edge. Jamal, the show’s apparent R&pop star, justifies his backwards glance with expensive live instrumentation. What he’s creating isn’t expired, it’s timeless. David is writing what he knows, he sharpened this sound and he’ll tinker with it until he tires. His perfecting touch is Big Narstie, who sounds like freshly mown grass and a 10 lb bag of mulch. Together they sound like a big budget drama — a flashy cast, talented writers, and the age old conflict of man vs. the music. 
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: If things continue to escalate, The Redemption of Craig David could become one of the great cinematic epics of the early 21st century, but this is not the song that should feature at its climax. His previous triumphs are light years ahead of this, a song so insubstantial that it could be royalty-free ambience music for an overheated clothes shop, with only the hint of a “boink!” being halfway memorable; even Big Narstie brings little to suggest his cult popularity. Hopefully it’s all as if he were a brand new act, and this is the pre-Christmas “tastemakers”‘ single.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Craig David doesn’t mess around here — an understated intro and then he dives into a breezy garage-pop number, wherein David plays the role of ushering in the weekend. Big Narstie adds some nice tension, even if ultimately ends a slightly sharp corner to a feel-good throwback. 
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: After a chance meeting in BBC Studios thanks to Top 5 UK Comedy Team DOA Kurupt FM, two gods encounter each other. The first is Craig David, a man who actually has shit range, but just for making his first album’s singles and “Rewind” has eternal credibility. The other is Big Narstie, the former N.A.A mic-man who hasn’t had a good song in a decade but has become an icon thanks to his infinitely rewarding “Uncle Pain” YouTube series in which he serves as the Brixton Dear Abby. Because the universe does sometimes recognize when good things need to be, especially after the remarkable chemistry they showed during David KO-ing “Where Are U Now” like nobody’s business on that BBC session, these two have recorded a song together that I hope is the first of many. David is mostly nostalgic, recycling from “Rewind” and reviving the old garage sound palettes into a more tech-housey edge. But its Narst who really helps push this one past how novel it sounds, turning in the first verse in a decade that truly overflows with his humor and spark, while he even plays support “host” during David’s verses like he’s chatting over records on Axe.FM again. For anyone who’s ever thrown up gun-fingers to “Urban Hero” or knows the Sunship dub mix of “Fill Me In” is low-key much better than the original, this is just what the doctor ordered.
[9]

Jonathan Bogart: I’m enjoying Craig David’s unobtrusive and even ephemeral reinvention as a SoundCloud artist; anything that doesn’t get picked up by DJs or the radio can be said to not count. It’s not failure if you don’t try. And if that means that the millions who would have loved it if they didn’t have to find it for themselves won’t get to hear it, oh well.
[8]

A generous kind of dance music.

[Video][Website]
[5.43]

Jessica Doyle: This feels already dated, maybe deliberately so, as if to pass first judgment: 2015 was The Year We Listened to Female Singers Discuss Weed-Smoking with an Affected Casualness While Men Yelped “What?” in The Background. Which made me wonder: what is 2015 going to feel like for those a couple decades’ removed from it? Will my daughters’ daughters want to know what it was like the day Obergefell v. Hodges was announced? (I cried; I got on Twitter; I promised my best friend I’d never bug her about marrying her partner.) Or if we went to a rally after the Michael Brown grand jury refused to indict? (In Decatur; it was perfectly peaceful; we couldn’t hear the speakers.) Will they think that 2015 must have been a time of excitement and intensity — marvel that the simple act of using a hashtag on Twitter, or posting a selfie, could be political and brave? Dear future, 2015 was like any other year: sometimes disappointing and often a little tedious, and all of us in it unsure if the worst is coming quickly or receding under a tide of unpredictable individual decisions. “Roses” is safe, a little sad, yearning for human connection. This sounds about right.
[5]

Madeleine Lee: A beautiful VSCO Cam photo of an orange and pink sunset peeking through clouds, uploaded on a night when everyone else is posting the exact same thing.
[6]

Will Adams: In which The Chainsmokers drain the excess from their past productions, leaving behind a gorgeous mid-tempo that bursts and contracts at every beat. Unlike most vocal dance music, “Roses” is neither situated on festival grounds nor in the present; it’s not about love’s possibility, it’s about love past. It takes until the chorus to realize this, as Rozes’ smitten letter crumples into a wad, leaving the ink to bleed through repeatedly with the aching plea, “Say you’ll never let me go.”
[9]

Alfred Soto: The usual electrofuzz and distortions apply, or: Simon Says for the Skrillex Age.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Gently pulsating electronic f/x snake their way through and around half a song, sung by Rozes. At least there’s no drop. I think the “Say you’ll never let me go” refrain means this is emo for Gen-EDM.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Uncommon generosity from the Chainsmokers, two people who’ve since shown little evidence they’re capable of the emotion. The otherwise non-sequitur title is an ad for the singer — “you know, that song, Rozes?” (Counterpoint: Given her scant/scrubbed Internet presence it’s possible she named herself after a Chainsmokers instrumental.) And there’s very little Chainsmoking crassness; the song sounds essentially like Rozes’ solo music, down to the echoing synth peals and tangled-headphones vocal snarl. Is “generosity” what this is? I can’t tell anymore, or what this is aimed at, or who it is for. The music business is weird.
[6]

Andy Hutchins: If someone prone to doing bad Adele karaoke found a discarded MGMT instrumental, it would sound like this but would also possibly be better music. The “WHAT?” used for effect is self-aware existential angst, right?
[3]

La ola tropical!

[Video][Website]
[5.00]Will Adams: Damn, this throbs. A DJ Mustard bassline gets stacked on the octave and given a thwacking attack, a shivering synth mimics it, and Daddy Yankee leads the proceedings competently. Not sure what the “Turn Down For What” coda was for, but I suppose it’s easy enough to manually fade the last thirty seconds.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Mustardese gone Tropical Rave style, which in all seriousness needs to be a sound Dijon should consider to extend his career, but Yankee has done really well for himself in this little gesture.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: I guess this is what you get when you cross EDM-pop with reggaeton; unfortunately, I can’t think of a record where I’ve heard Daddy Yankee sound more lacking in personality. “Vaiven” could really just about be any new jack reggaeton singer, which is a profound disappointment, because you come to a Yankee record in part for Daddy Yankee, and I can barely hear him here.
[3]

Anthony Easton: The beat has this really neat trick of being bombastic and fast while making sure that you know what is being said — a kind of stentorian gravitas. It’s a neat double effect
[8]

Alfred Soto: Rote electrosalsa with a couple of stentorian vocal injections for variety.
[3]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: I miss the days when reggaeton was exciting enough to make you at least try to dance. The attempt of a Diplo beat is appreciated, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere special, and El Cangri sounds sluggish and uninspired.
[4]

As usual, the Jukebox will be taking the day off for Thanksgiving. In exchange, here is Missy Elliott serving you pumpkin pie:

 

That make it better? Yes? No? Ah, well. We’ll be back tomorrow with more music coverage, don’t you worry. Until then, don’t forget that there’s still time to submit a song for our upcoming Readers’ Week! Read here for more info.

For those readers celebrating Thanksgiving, we hope you have a great holiday. See you all soon.

Her continue-to-fight song…

[Video][Website]
[3.88]

Thomas Inskeep: Simon Cowell should get on the horn to Platten’s publisher now, because this bullshit-hokum-inspirational-twaddle is the stuff from which X Factor winner’s singles are made. Unsurprising to learn that the lead dork from fun. helped write this, too. It’s got the same faux-anthemic structure as Katy Perry’s “Roar,” and makes my stomach curdle just as much. 
[1]

Sonia Yang: Beyoncé’s “Halo” done in the style of Jordin Sparks’ “Battlefield,” but with less vocal acrobatics. “Stand By You” echoes the sentiment of Platten’s previous single “Fight Song” but in a relationship context. These are all good evocations, but ultimately the song doesn’t make the impact it intended to.
[6]

Will Adams: You guessed right, it has gently swung stadium drums and a backing choir. With “Fight Song” and now “Stand By You,” Rachel Plattitudes sounds like she’s trying to methodically assemble an army one inspiring song at a time. I doubt the turnout will be very big, but think of all the great Ford commercials we’ll get along the way!
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: As I settle into premature decrepitude I continue to love that subset of populist but not trendy enough to be to demographics-drunk music critic taste — the sort beloved of the less-celebrated teenage girls, and the women they become. If Adele is their priestess, Rachel Platten is their foot soldier in the high school trenches. The voice is thin (yet, according to my sister in casting, still inspires a hundred bad vocal auditions), the lyric is simultaneously bombastic and unmoving, and the music is overinflated in at least three places, More charitably: the voice is relatable; the lyric suits a teen milieu that does often feel like walking through hell, alone; and I’m not so stuffy I can’t appreciate the exact midpoint of “Unwell” and “Roar.”
[6]

Alfred Soto: With the drums booming like caravels signaling through fog, Rachel Patten sings of the eternal verities. In a marketplace that honors such things “Even if you can’t find heaven” sounds blasphemous enough, although this is the same singer whose “Fight Song” honored careerism for its own sake.
[3]

Scott Mildenhall: Rachel Platten’s medium-sized voice was unusually suitable for “Internal Rhyme Song”, because rather than sounding innately impervious, as some would-be empowerers have done,she really did seem like an ordinary person steeling themselves. Now she’s trying to inspire confidence through direct reassurance, though, the effect is reversed. This is where superhuman conviction could come in. Either that, or a dose of inspiration in the music – it’s a template with good reason, but that’s cold comfort.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The wing metaphor is so complicated and clumsy, and her walking through hell with me would just make things even worse. Also, I know why my heart beats, and she should read more Rorty before trying to define truth. Also, the founding beat of this is worse than the lyrics. 
[1]

Brad Shoup: It sounds like its own garage remix, which is something. It’s not that Platten’s eager to entertain — which, again, I generally find winning — it’s that she’s here to overwhelm, and the arrangement (the live-drummer boom-bap, the crotchet piano, the insectoid music box, the gospel piffle) is a ruthless perfect-fifth column to this end. The tempo is hectic because pop radio, I guess; imagining all the ways this song can go off the rails is a fair chunk of the fun.
[6]

Country outsider-of-sorts releases surprise album…

[Video][Website]
[5.38]

Alfred Soto: Hews rather closely to “American Pie” and a minute too long, but Eric Church and his band create the kind of natural groove that no male country superstar can match, mitigating the self-pity. But “Mr. Misunderstood” also reveals that the character in the song listening to Elvis Costello while his friends listened to Top 40 radio understands the isolation of the kid in 2011’s “Homeboy.” Church is one more punk kid expressing his rage through genre requirements, and the only country performer surpassing his often muddled statements is Miranda Lambert. Further muddling matters: forget Luke Bryan, Kip Moore, and Brad Paisley — Church can snarl.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Eric Church really wants you to get the reference, so much so he didn’t trust the title to do it alone. “Mr. Misunderstood” opts for a bouncier route rather than violent release, though, and it is a nice bit of classic-rock call back. Also, blame too much time spent staring at my Twitter feed, but there is something charmingly stupid about the character at the center of this song being shamed by the cool kids listening to “top 40 radio.”
[6]

Anthony Easton: I should hate this. It quotes Elvis, thinks Jeff Tweedy is a bad motherfucker, and rests on nostalgia in ways that are almost unforgivable. It is also logically inconsistent — if you are misunderstood, you don’t sell out arenas. I also know how racist “Homeboy” was, and I ended up loving it. I love this for the quietness of the beginning guitar, I am forever in love with his baritone, and I will always forgive the mutually incomprehensible desire for the inside/outside here. I also think he is one of the best writers on the Top 40 right now. The verse about Alabama Hannah (Jackson Pollock and gin?!) needs to be a whole song — and if it was, it could be as good as “Two Pink Lines.” Nashville doesn’t quite know what to do with him. He’s not Blake, with an ambassadorial role, or Bryan who is trying to get out of his lost years, or the eminent gris of Gill, or the move between the indie and populist camps of Clarke or newly CMA minted Stapleton. But he’s not a genuine outsider, like Todd Snider or Hayes Carll. Christ, he isn’t even Jason Isbell. The outsider shtick is wearing thin, and the anxiety is palpable. The work is so unstable, and it hasn’t collapsed yet. 
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: First of all, Jeff Tweedy is not, nor has he ever been, “one bad mother.” I mean, c’mon: is this Church’s bid for AAA/rock cred? His voice is wearing on me, too. I’m glad this sounds more focused than much of The Outsiders, but he wants to be one of the Outlaws so bad it’s killin’ him, and this sounds like a kid playing dress-up in Dad’s clothes.
[5]

Sonia Yang: Not a fan of the over-exaggerated twang; it’s not you, it’s me (this is the reason why most of my country music consumption is limited to country-pop crossovers). The arrangement builds up nicely though, and the strong 2004 BUMP OF CHICKEN vibes in the last minute (when the “na na nanana…” part comes on) made me smile.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Where Church’s best story songs are pensive, this is just blustery, getting not more compelling, but more ragged and desperate as it goes on, as if this will lend the hollow, cliched story some gravitas or resonance. But it just gets laboured: the craft reminds me a bit of the intent of one of Dylan’s long-story style songs like “Tangled Up in Blue,” wedded to the style of “American Pie.” More than that, it feels like a sketch where the most compelling ideas are buried under less well-developed ones which makes it feel like it’s too long even though I could listen to “Springsteen” or “Talladega” at twice their length. Around the time The Outsiders came out, Church was boasting of all the potential #1 singles he didn’t bother putting on the album. I hope he’s saved a couple for the next.
[4]

Will Adams: The subgenre of songs directed at young, misunderstood kids (or the artists’ former, misunderstood selves) is one I don’t think I can ever enjoy. The tone is invariably condescending — especially when directed at someone else — as the narrator attempts and fails to both describe why the kid doesn’t fit in and assure them that that’s okay. Which results in, at best, another case of the older generation just not getting it and, at worst, seriously unhelpful shit. My other problem is the revenge fantasy of most of these songs: the flashy rockstar daydreaming that looks all peachy until you realize that your enemies still exist, are still human, but all they’ll ever be is mean or losers or poor. “Mr. Misunderstood” has subtler lyrics, but it’s still hard to conjure sympathy when this mister’s biggest crime is not having big muscles and listening to vinyl.- But as the rewarmed “American Pie” music chugs into its fifth minute, Church’s saintly voice pipes in over the chorus, “I understand,” which brings me to my final problem: the narrator’s implicit back-patting for their song whose message, however illformed, situates them as a vague-enough ally to elicit more understanding for them than whatever poor kid is being laughed at for not tuning in to radio.
[3]

Megan Harrington: I’ll admit, it’s been hard to separate the noise from the signal when it comes to Eric Church. Reading over reviews of The Outsiders that pitched Church as country for everyone, country for Springsteen fans, country without the embarrassment, grated. It’s not that I believe Church is pursuing something else; in fact, I think he’s pursuing that exactly, and “Mr. Misunderstood” even shouts out Jeff Tweedy, not quite a country hero. It’s that country radio stations still play the hell out of Church while the rock stations don’t know he’s alive. It was speculative fiction, play pretend, ego explosion on the part of a handful of critics that didn’t count Church’s real audience as worthwhile. And the more I heard “Give Me Back My Hometown,” the more I resented Church for making everything so easy for those critics — for me, too. To this day, I don’t know if I like Wilco or if I just liked so many people who liked Wilco that they took root in me. Hearing Church ape Being There confuses me further; I know I’m near the target audience for “Mr. Misunderstood,” familiar with all its reference points and long since surrendered to its ramshackle twang. But this approach makes me feel like a checked box, like everything I am is overwritten with data points. There’s nothing expressly bad about “Mr. Misunderstood” but I don’t want to be the person it wants me to be. 
[5]

Not a cover of [ED. NOTE: ONLY YOU STILL FIND THIS JOKE FUNNY]

[Video][Website]
[5.86]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: While “Cupid”, Oh My Girl’s first single and official introduction, was about inmediacy and rhythm, this one is all about the atmosphere, as it slowly takes you into a world of pure magic. The vocal melodies are angelical, and the synth layers create a wall of sound of epic, almost shoegaze proportions. It’s kind of a slow burner, which is refreshing from a rookie group. I can live without the little rap part at the end, though.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: Underwhelming trance-pop that sounds as if Robert Miles decided to team with a B-list K-pop ensemble back in ’96. (Mind you, I love “Children.”)
[4]

Iain Mew: “Closer” sounds ready to burst into a banger, but instead hovers just outside that point for almost its entire length, synths and chorus packing a punch but staying under enough control to keep its sweetly understated vibe. I love energy and spectacle, but this is a striking sound that I’m happy to hear again too. They’re not 2NE1 and Mimi is certainly no CL, but when her rap comes in at the end it’s the same exciting sense of finally letting off pressure as the close of “I Love You.”
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Don’t know how, but the muffled version of the chorus playing at the start of the music video for “Closer” sounds way better (and dreamier) than what actually ends up anchoring the song.
[4]

Brad Shoup: I like the tempo; it’s like they’re beating through mist. The repeated “I’m closer” has a sort of rowers’ cadence, too. It’s not quite heavenly, but it’s definitely atmospheric.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The chorus provides the release of a good Corrs single, and Ariana Grande would blast it. In its current form it’s a sweet sigh.
[6]

Sonia Yang: Lovely fairy tale aesthetic and angelic voices, but the music itself forever edges closer to something without ever reaching it.
[5]