This is the first of what I believe will be many songs called this in 2016.

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[5.43]

Thomas Inskeep: It’s a demo and sounds like it.
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: Kendrick out here doing a fake blues/gospel vibrato (proving that the teacher has become the master now that he’s biting Chance), and he’s doing a spooky voice for the word ‘jigaboos,’ which only results in five more gray hairs popping at the fact that so many people were thrilled with this record also heard that and thought “hahah, heck yeah!” — hahah, heck no. Never mind this decent Organized Noize lift for the production, at the end of the day, Kendrick is redundant as far as a rapper here, both overworked and hollow at the end of the day. But all this fake pomp and weird reaching with the vocab makes all the people who suggested Bowie’s Blackstar was riddled with the same pervasive failings of To Pimp A Butterfly via enamoring really do get a ribbon tied on their case with Kendrick doing shit as grim as this.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The high pitched drawl affected for the “I see jigaboos” verse is the only mistake in a track that takes Fannie Lou Hamer and Kamsai Washington on a tour through a sated mind, stuck in L.A. at the same parties with Kanye except the insistent minor key hum of the music and an excellent third verse make clear there’s no conflict: he hates it there. Where he goes from there — where he goes from here — is another story, and Kendrick Lamar has shown he can write them.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Noodly and meandering in a way in which the heroically pretentious and masterfully crafted To Pimp a Butterfly never was (no, not even “Mortal Man”), this feels like a draggy outtake. Even when the rap that dominates the second half promises to liven things up a bit, Kendrick comes off sounding restrained–the track isn’t worth the virtuosity that he can deliver in his sleep at this point, and he knows it. Still, it is impossible to deny if that if anyone should be permitted a victory lap in their career right now, it’s Kendrick Lamar.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: I live in a culture in which hip hop is considered underground and there is no such thing as a mainstream hip hop act. People know Kanye West because he is Kim Kardashian’s husband! I don’t know what it is to be a good rapper, but I constantly read that Kendrick Lamar is the best rapper of these days. While I’m not so knowledgeable about the genre, I feel as if Kendrick Lamar has the ability to make hip hop feel less distant. The jazz in the background creates a hazy mood, the hook is catchy and the shifting tones of his voice are mesmerizing. If this is protest music, there is no better way make a listener pay attention to the lyrics.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: I’m not bothered by the fact that it’s a demo, or that it’s unfinished when considering this track in total. If anything, this would actually have benefited from having fewer ideas. At its most minimal, it’s the most powerful; the third verse of this is terrific and that there really ought to be a finished, fully produced track that expands on the intensity of Lamar’s delivery adorned by suspenseful, nervous bass throbs.
[4]

Cassy Gress: I had my media player on random, and before I could press pause, it started up the next track, which happened to be the first few seconds of a live version of The Stylistics’ “Betcha By Golly Wow.”  Sitcom synths and applause: an ironic coda to a song that sounds like a lost track from The Love Below, recorded while Andre 3000 was depressed and stoned.  Kendrick here is someone you know, probably not too close to, having a nervous breakdown in the corner on the kitchen floor, wide-eyed and trying to smile but it looks like a grimace, shaking his head too quickly, assuring you he’s fine. The amazing thing about Kendrick isn’t his flow or his thoughts about being a black American; it’s the seeming ease and clarity with which he is able to express himself. His flow is pristine, his alliteration soft and effortless, and the relative flatness of his rap in the second half of this combines with his own disillusionment and the muddled keyboards to sound thoroughly disconcerting.
[7]

But first, let us take a…

[Video][Website]
[5.33]

Crystal Leww: I cannot for the life of me reconcile the cheery sunny bits with that bleeting EDM drop. This should soundtrack the closing credits to a Bring It On type of teen romcom movie with the whole cast joining in for a goofy hip thrusting wiggle dance during the dubstep wobbles. I cannot imagine listening to it outside of that setting.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Vietnamese boy-band pop that’s too cute by half; the trap/EDM trappings don’t help. 
[3]

Jer Fairall: A production stacked with enough bells and whistles that about a 2/3 of them are bound to work. Me, I smile at those bright Eastern synths and the sheer bubbliness of the chorus, but could do without the sooo-five-years-ago wubs. The hit/miss ratio extends to the video as well, a charming Cinderella riff that is exuberantly choreographed, before stooping to some unfortunate fat-shaming for a few cheap laughs.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Winsome V-pop set to a reggae preset that gets by on the strength of those vocals, which have a vague tejano lilt. The hook is a fragrant breeze.
[7]

Anthony Easton: I like the inclusion of traditional instrumentation, laced through, the vocals made more intricate by their presence. Also, some excellent harmonies, and it’s nice to know that boy bands are pretty universal.
[7]

Cassy Gress: Two, maybe three songs are strangely cut and pasted together.  I’m reminded of Chino Y Nacho, of all things, on the simple and earnest verses and “selfie selfie yeah” choruses; all of the other wubby beepy sounds are an Alphie II from hell.
[4]

Iain Mew: Hearing heavy electronics slammed into something different is not too novel these days, but the jaunty chorus of this is far enough from anything being done in Korea or elsewhere that it makes for a new thing. There is something remarkably gleeful about tackling both that and trap inspired sections that sound somewhere between “Turn Down for What” and Jolin Tsai, and doing so with a gameness and ability that disappears the need for a difference between the two. I still love all of the vworp sounds in their own right too, which helps.
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: Two points for that weird gong effect in the breakdown with the annoying DJ Snake synth (is there a name for that?), a half point for doing some weird bouncing reggae groove for the verses, and a half point for making me laugh that we’re still using wobble bass in 2016.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: Had 365 settled on just one or even two ideas here, “Selfie” probably wouldn’t have worked out so well. But bless their hearts, they embraced like five different sounds over the course of this song, and end up with a song that, while not great, is extremely charming. It’s the K-pop model of cramming as much as you can into a song taken to its logical end point — EDM drops meet Diplo hooks meet rap meet a chorus that sounds like the “Macarena” if that one was followed up by a transition mimicking “Pressure Drop.”
[6]

But don’t like it.

[Video][Website]
[4.33]

Katherine St Asaph: I’d written M83’s music off as the most shameless(ly effective) of festival pathos, with more emotional jugular-seizing than Andrew Lloyd Webber and Zedd combined; here we have indie mumbling over ragtime piano and no hook. It isn’t long before M83 remember who the hell they are and what their listeners want, but that time in between is fascinating: M83 sounding like nothing else.
[7]

Iain Mew: It makes me think of Camel gone house, but in about the most superficial way possible. Rather than M83 deploying all these luxe prog touches acting as an affectionate reminder, the clumsy way they blast on through them does them a disservice.
[3]

Cassy Gress: Anthony Gonzalez, do it! Try it! Resolve that goddamn iv-Vsus4-V into a i! You’re killing me here. This is full of chord progressions that stubbornly don’t go the way my ears want them to, and with the “do it! try it!” poking and prodding at me, and that bizarre tack piano at the beginning, this almost feels like a troll.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: It begins with house piano by way of music hall Wurlitzer, and by its climax has accelerated into a full-on ecstatic carousel, lights strobing as the horses break free of their poles and take flight. What could have been inconsequentially wacky is instead a dizzy joy. It’s 2007, 1987 and 1927 all at once, and that’s surely nothing short of the sound of the future.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: I truly don’t get it, I thought we all agreed that the whole Unicorn Kid era was a mistake?
[2]

Patrick St. Michel: Everyone gets old, and most of them get cranky about something. The last few years have seen electronic artists once at the forefront of the style whining about the kids today — most notably, Daft Punk’s insistence that computers aren’t instruments, mannnn — and now M83 joins in. ‘”I feel like we’re losing this culture of making things, everything is digital, even in music,” he says. His response, then, is “Do It, Try It,” a meandering bit of electro squawk full of pitch-shifted vocals and retro-tinged synthesizer — things that no shortage of other artists making music in digital spaces have also played around with for, oh, the last ten years and come up with far more enjoyable songs. This is either a piss take (annoying) or a total whiff at electro-pop experimentation (more likely, just as annoying). At least Daft Punk made songs that sounded good on the radio.
[0]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Maybe we’ve all got so familiar with M83’s previous masterpiece Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming — and its monumental musical gestures — that some have found “Do It, Try it” just completely unlistenable. It may have taken us all by surprise, but this is a classic Anthony Gonzalez move. M83 has always been (and should remain) a project in constant reinvention. This messy, delirious piano-house number is all about fun for fun’s sake, but it’s also about nihilistic abandon. After all, Gonzalez himself, on a press release for upcoming LP Junk, said: “Anything we create today is going to end up being space junk at one point anyway.” There’s no better way to sum this up. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: Echo, broken-distorted vocal hook, each expected hesitation over house piano pounding — M83 has graduated to the dance festival circuit, all right, as if a college kid dreamed their miserabilist beginnings. Can’t deny the synth bass or the quasi-classical flourishes before that meaningless hook though.
[5]

Danilo Bortoli: M83 have already hinted at synth-pop pastiche before and the result was one of the pivotal albums of the aughts, a coming of age tale that still resonates. In “Do It, Try It”, they sound self-referential and constrained — as if the eighties could be limited to The Human League’s Dare and nothing else. They “evoke”, they “trigger” a very specific time’s music, which is something they have done extensively with guts and confidence in the past. But sometimes, along the way, they were able to get away with it with much more wit than now.
[5]

Behold, as Maxwell gives a high score to #AMERICANA…

[Video][Website]
[7.75]

Jer Fairall: Skewing far more toward Neko and Laura’s spectral Americana than k.d.’s reverent formalism, “Atomic Number” nevertheless benefits greatly from the contrast provided by lang’s lower register, particularly in light of how the side-by-side placement of the other two singers only highlights their vocal similarities. It is to the detriment of the least famous member of the trio–odd, perhaps, given that her husband is the producer–that her softer voice threatens to get lost underneath Case’s unmistakable presence, an imbalance I can only hope will not recur on the upcoming album. Strictly as a composition, though, this is graceful and haunting, mixing folk storytelling tradition with rueful feminist protest (“why are the wholesome things the ones we make obscene?”) and an oblique chorus that sits like a knot in the centre, leaving it all so fittingly unresolved. The instrumentation–spooky/beautiful acoustic guitar arpeggios, a mournful sweep of violin, drums so underplayed they’re barely there–strikes the right balance between lush and unsettled.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Daniel Lanois-esque production + gorgeous vocals, both singly and in harmony = a potential new Trio for the ’10s.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: It’d be churlish to complain that on a track with the voices of Neko Case and kd lang, whom I adore, and Laura Veirs, whom I liked last time I remembered she existed (Year of Meteors), the highlight is a violin figure. So I’ll just be grateful for three lovely voices and one elegant, thoughtful bit of songwriting. The contrast between lang’s voice and Case’s and Veirs’ is a bit underused, but it’s hard to see how an album full of this could possibly fail.
[8]

Alfred Soto: I can’t deny the string arrangement: whirling melodic passages worthy of Paul Bruckmeister. And I treasure the first verse, the three singers exchanging lines. The mix adds unnecessary echo. Here’s hoping these three create a Trio or Traveling Wilburys Volume One for the new millennium.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: The least likely kid to bump “Constant Craving” out of Jamaica, Queens has no real reference case for the understood “significance” of such a combination of ladies harmonizing; so I have to ditch the backgrounds and reputations, and sort through what’s landed from the drift. The simple backbeat has a grave tone, making the stoic melodrama solid and sturdy, while the voices link together and press against the chorus with fortitude. There’s an esoteric quality to both the alchemical nature of the lyrics but also the unity of this trio playing off the separate personalities resonating through their voices. To have such stirring performers depart on so brief a song feels like all too brief a moment, but a most promising gesture to the possible power within this temporal unit.
[8]

Brad Shoup: I like it cos it sounds like Jars of Clay — that pensive endless acoustic figure, the laconic dulcimer strikes, the talking string rejoinders — and I love it because it’s protest music.
[8]

Cassy Gress: A starry soundscape so expansively unfurled that it could have lasted several more minutes. When was the last time anyone equated female purity and wholesomeness with the geometric perfection of a chemical element? I don’t believe this is meant to be parsed as a paean to virginity or moral rectitude; it’s a simple statement of deep-seated strength.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: The balance of crunchy, soaring and wistful that’s eluded me (so far, pending further listening) in any of these women’s solo work, on the sort of song that might tempt one to spiral one’s listening off into a year or more of only this sound.
[9]

Not the Future we chose…

[Video][Website]
[3.67]

Micha Cavaseno: Listening to Future’s phone-ins on EVOL was dire, so listening to the equally regressive Abel Tesfaye echo in alongside him while Metro Boomin serves up dollar store snare hits is about the equivalent of feeling an unnatural need to swallow river sludge.
[2]

Crystal Leww: Future collaborating with The Weeknd was the natural evolution of both of their careers. The fact that the song is about “repping for that low life” and sounds as flaccid as whiskey dick? This isn’t even bad — these two got famous and their music got boring. 
[3]

Brad Shoup: They seem so sleepy. And yet the sleepy part of the track — a scrambled vocal (the Weeknd’s, I assume) and dying synthstrings — is the best part. Future gets a couple good jokes in, like “roaches everywhere/like we forgot to take the trash out”. But mostly it sounds like the blurry unrealized decline.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Adapting his eloquent mumble to high life ends is hell on Future’s taste. “Show me how you go down,” The Weeknd yearns, as if begging for a chocolate doughnut.
[2]

Anthony Easton: The slow grind slur of both of these performers would suggest a perfect match, and it kind of works. It’s a little repetitive, and I wanted to have them work with each other, as opposed to trading voices, but it has that thickness of a thought not quite present, which often occurs with a fondness for pills. It sounds like benzos.  
[6]

Danilo Bortoli: In the month of House of Balloons‘ five-year anniversary, Tom Ewing’s words on the (then new) connection between indie and R&B still ring true: “what’s appealing for me in R&B is its capacity for beauty and empathy, not its selfishness or doubt.” Which, in the context of “Low Life,” means at least two things. First, as it is made apparent, Abel Tesfaye has ditched that rare moment of brilliance for something more down to earth. Secondly, in order to do that he has returned to that ugly, narcissistic world of his, which, in this case, even gets Future thrown under his mess. This is indeed a good end of the line, considering we’ve putting up with this crap for five rough years now.
[4]

Jer Fairall: “I’m repping for that low life,” Abel Tesfaye sings, hinting at the self-awareness that I read into House of Balloons way back when, only to squirm at every bit of celebratory skeeziness that followed. As a hook, it suits the ugliness of Future’s proud narrative of druggin’ and cheatin’, which he performs with a seductive agility, yes, but also with his ongoing preference for glaring Auto-Tune.
[5]

Cassy Gress: Future and The Weeknd both sound appropriately stoned, but I can’t conscionably support a song about taking pride in leaving a nice hotel room looking like a crackhouse. This is gross.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: From the Genius page for “Low Life”: “As supporters of the “low life,” The Weeknd and Future turn “high life” accommodations into austere ones.” Or to put it another way, they make living it up (in a manner of speaking) sound depressing as fuck, sucking all the joy out of would-be fun with their incessant nilihism. The Weeknd turns A Clockwork Orange into pop, somehow, making him the perfect foil for Future’s I-get-fucked-up-isms. If you don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics, the track has a nice, firm groove, but really, if you’re gonna go that direction, just find the instrumental. Because this is as depressing — and sleazy, and not in a good way — as fuck.
[4]

“And THIS is for Sung Tongs…”

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[5.00]Jer Fairall: Nine women who aren’t Beyoncé–ten if we count songwriter Diane Warren, eleven if we include project leader Michelle Obama–send their love down the well on a sub-Beyoncé female empowerment anthem so nondescript and free of controversy that it could only be for charity.
[4]

Lauren Gilbert: Say what you will, Bill Clinton will never decide what the world needs is a collaboration between Janelle Monáe and Kelly Clarkson.
[6]

Brad Shoup: I hear Michelle wanted a Destiny’s Child reunion, but Mitch McConnell blocked it.
[4]

Alfred Soto: What else am I supposed to write other than “this is OK”? Obviously if every performer credited had a part the track would be as long as La Traviata, but with that lineup we’re owed better than a decent hook and noble sentiment.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: It’s a good sentiment, it sounds like Rich Harrison circa a decade and change ago, it’s impossible to criticize without coming across like a jerk, but it’s got the curse of the disposable that marks too many charity records.
[6]

Cassy Gress: Everyone involved with this is talented, likable, and/or known for being a fierce, successful diva. One would think that something beautiful and inspiring could come out of having all these women on the same track. But listening to this, all I can think of is the 2001 “Lady Marmalade” cover, or worse, the “What’s Going On?” all-star cover from the same year. Except where both of those songs were brought down by one or more players trying their damnedest to out-shine (or out-sincere) everyone else, this reeks of an idea and passion with nothing to support it except homilies and aphorisms. Missy’s verse doesn’t even sound like her, and Missy verses are usually some of the most fun things to listen to.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: There’s no way to say this without coming off as a hypocritical asshole, but here we have an empowerment anthem that’s undercut by the unspoken fact that nobody here is at the peak of her career. The song’s fine, resemblance to that Fergie song from The Great Gatsby aside, but in meme-ified, fanbase-stratified 2016 more so than ever, any song is only as resonant as its performers’ celebrity is strong. What power does this hold for an audience fresh off making Poor Michelle memes?
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: Money and prestige buys (or gets tax-exempt donated) some decent beats, taut and squelchy; a conceptual mandate of generalized affirmation ends up with mushy aphorisms and indistinct too-many-cooks harmonies. Missy (who else?) is the only one who stands out; and I hope that the nascent girl-power this will no doubt inspire in many young women will go on to take cues from her own radical womanhood.
[6]

“Mm-mmm” more like “uh-uhh”…

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Brad Shoup: When keeping it real goes wrong.
[4]

Alfred Soto: This average student of the Miranda Lambert hell-on-heels includes details in her songs because that’s what Good Songs have: Payless Shoes, a perfume that ain’t Chanel No. 5, man with the dragon tattoo. “Get your hand off my mm-mm” adds “coyness.” The guitar adds “raunch.” 
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: Snappier and more revved-up than I was expecting, but she’s got a way to go to be the Miranda Lambert she wants to see in the world.
[6]

Cassy Gress: Tara stuffed this song full of lines about exactly where she is and what she looks like and who she ain’t going home with tonight, and it makes a great mental picture. The picture vanishes, though, every time she gets to “get your hand off my mmm-mmm”; I think it’s supposed to be cute but we’re all adults here, she can say “ass.” A cute thing that does work is the “oooooooooooo yup” toward the end.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: She’s got the lyrical cleverness of a Shane McAnally co-write with the likes of Brandy Clark and/or Kacey Musgraves, but her production and attitude harken to Gretchen Wilson or Toby Keith. Witty, sassy, and super sing-a-long-able.
[8]

Will Adams: With a pile of cultural references and nudge-nudge single-entendre lyrics in hand, Thompson smothers “Someone to Take Your Place” in the type of faux-sass that reminds me of Chelsea Bain’s “Rockin’ That Trailer.” I don’t doubt Thompson could pull off ‘tude in theory, but when she says “get your hand off my mm-mmm” she sounds like a Campbell’s commercial and when she says “sorry” she sounds like Gilly.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: I’m really fully done by the goofiness of “She said get out there and work it girl, so I’m workin’ it,” but there are so many points where Thompson’s clearly throwing out a sea of puns and trying horrifically to give it accompaniment with melody and arrhythmic presence. Never mind Jhene Aiko, THIS is the girl who needs to do a project with Big Sean.
[2]

That would be Felicity, right?

[Video][Website]
[6.60]

Jonathan Bogart: God, I miss 1993.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: If a good single is one that has the potential to appeal audiences, then it seems that Mitski and her label had everything wrong. “Your Best American Girl” is noisy, has nearly unintelligible vocals and although it’s three minutes and a half long, it leaves an unfinished feeling. You’d expect that the chorus would maybe become epic, that she would scream one important line or that violins would transform it into a celestial song. But nothing like that happens. Instead, it finishes as quietly as it began. However, for that reason, the explosion of the chorus works as a revelation of secret emotions. As listeners, we are drawn to it and we want to hear it again, and every time it happens, it has the same striking effect it had the first time, because this could be our own secret, too.
[7]

Alfred Soto: A power ballad with power — dig that guitar. It sounds like Sky Ferreira backing Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
[6]

Jer Fairall: Classic-era Smashing Pumpkins guitar dynamics are an undervalued property ever since alt.rock has gotten progressively ornate, so I should be cheering Mitski as her captivating (if lyrically clumsy) verses build to a storming crescendo, but the balance is off. The noise drowns out her vocal, and the intended catharsis is similarly lost in the murk.
[5]

Cassy Gress: I used to lurk on artofthemix.org a long time ago, and this reminds me of a lot of the songs I got from there: wobbly and almost mournful, full of feedback and reverb. It’s not something I particularly liked; it all sounded sort of camo-colored.  But she’s a Japanese-American, angrily mourning the poor connection she has made with an all-American boy while learning to love her own heritage, and it’s an appropriate sound for that.
[5]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: The dazzling guitar/strings crescendo this song is built upon is a thing of wonder; it’s meant to reference classic 90’s indie rock, but it feels more like a visceral take on the sound of recent groups like Cymbals Eat Guitars. It’s a perfect fit for the turmoil in the lyrics. No other instrumentation could support a message this powerful. “Your Best American Girl” speaks to so many of us: Those who have fallen in love with someone from a completely different world, those who feel crushed by the weight of expectations and want desperately to fit in, those who have everything against them but don’t want to let go. When her voice goes from that reverberated pre-chorus to the enormous, distorted hook, and she goes, “Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me / But I do, I think I do,” it feels like the earth beneath your feet is shifting. It’s the sound of shit getting real.
[8]

Micha Cavaseno: Musically, it’s little more than a generic grunge ballad in 2016, so I can’t rate this incredibly highly. But Mitski’s gone out of her way to say something much realer than most of the people wasting their time with a 20 year redundant rock style, so she also isn’t worth tarnishing. This indicates a tragedy of the modern era though; “Your Best American Girl” deals with powerful issues, and demonstrates a specific sort of pain that resonates with a specific sort of listener. But she rides a dead horse, flogged to death and stripped of flesh by sloppy self-indulgent morons before her. And it’s not her fault for working with a barren rock wasteland she’s been dealt, but it’s damned pointless to fail to consider reworking the music, to take the sounds, and push them in the same way she’s pushed herself.
[5]

Iain Mew: Wanting to be something for the benefit of someone else is its own kind of pressure, and Mitski subtly builds to a fittingly overwhelming sound. It’s catharsis strong enough to leave ears ringing.
[7]

Brad Shoup: “I Don’t Smoke” wrecked me because Mitski unwound this gutting, kinked line of reasoning. The narrator of “Your Best American Girl” bows out pretty quickly, but her goodbye sounds like an apartment getting demolished. The distortion she gives her vocal results in something like lightning coated in aluminum.
[8]

Will Adams: The best kind of slow-burning candle song, moving modestly, sadly down the wick until it reaches the bottom and ignites the entire room.
[8]

As opposed to a FLAC Year or a Tidal Year…

[Video][Website]
[5.38]

Alfred Soto: Not one for word play, Eric Church recasts a breakup as an excuse to hole up with his favorite albums — a conservative gesture, sure, but free of his usual rancor. I don’t get how he’s supposed to sound like Hank and Stevie — I don’t expect a clavinet and jokes. So long as he still impatiently elides consonants to create unexpected stresses he’ll never bore while still honoring his influences; this is one of the best vocal performances of Church’s career. Bet he learned that trick from Hank and Stevie. Can’t wait to hear how country radio listeners respond to the “countin’ on a needle to save me” line.
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: Cool and collected as he sings about the aftermath of a brutal breakup, this is Church at his best: smart lyrics and smarter singing, on an economical tune. Give plenty of credit to Jay Joyce’s light hand behind the boards, too.
[7]

Anthony Easton: There is this great Ridley Bent song called “Nine Inch Nails” that is my favourite example of discography as an autobiography. Every time I listen to “Record Year,” I go back to Bent. I like the pun in Church’s song — and it’s a great twist — something that Jones might inherit. I also believe that Church actually listens to these records, but they also work as class and social signifiers, just like the Jeff Tweedy drop earlier on the album is supposed to mark authenticity. I don’t believe that the narrator listens to these albums, but I do believe that Church is making a meta comment about taste, which means the heart break doesn’t strike me as that believable. I do think that Church loves the records more than the girl.
[4]

Cassy Gress: Eric Church certainly has a lot of twang in his voice; in fact, if I were a guy and wanted to parody country music, I’d probably sound something like him. He doesn’t have the warm baritone of Garth Brooks or George Strait, and that really lets the song down, but I think the song knew that would happen, because the backing music is pretty thin too. Country songs that namedrop past country legends always feel like they are an authenticity check — “yup, I listened to Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings and George Jones, I’m a True Country Fan.” The result is insulating, more doubling down than anything else.  He mentions Stevie Wonder and James Brown too, but if they had any influence on him whatsoever, you certainly can’t hear any of it here.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: Being successfully pandered to always feels like a failure.
[6]

Iain Mew: One more “vinyl is back!” article, in song form, with not one of the referenced artists being given the same reverence as the form, never mind as much as Springsteen. The quiet-to-loud sweep at least feels less crowbarred in than the break up angle.
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Eric Church glamorized Springsteen and has an album called Chief, so he’s the opposite of what I want to support in the world. I’m not even sure what the saga of “bro country” or “pop country” or “regular country” even is as an ideological dispute, nor would I know where Church even sits within that field. But Church’s strange fame is a peculiar thing. He’s out here referencing all these things outside the realms of country, but rarely displays hints that could draw from sounds other than an homogenized stadium rock country sound: the kind of material Garth Brooks rode to the highest peaks once upon a time. It’s sandblasted of any identifiable or unique quality, but he’s out here giving lip service to unique individuals who made classic albums. My dude, I don’t care if you own a listicle of some of the greatest musical albums of the past century. Like, reflect that a little in your milquetoast life.
[5]

Brad Shoup: “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” — if he’s talking about Thorogood, he’s hit rock bottom. It’s a good conceit, and it leads to some great lines: the title, sure, but also “countin’ on a needle to save me.” But it’s hard to celebrate a bunch of tunes while distinguishing yours: Jimmy Eat World pulled it off, and Arthur Conley. Church has that subdued rubbery figure to start, then pulls a pop-rock arrangement off the shelf. He doesn’t even give the band a bridge upon which they can make their own memories. Spotlight on James Brown already.
[5]

And we close our day celebrating the rebirth of Jesus and Lady Gaga turning 30 with ACCORDIONS AND TUBAS, hell yes!

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Cassy Gress: The polish is a bit heavy, but you know what? This song is so amiable and summery that I don’t care.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: Latin youth may know Carlos Vives because of Wisin’s “Nota de amor” but he won’t remain in their consciousnesses if he continues to release such generic singles like this one. In his defense, Wisin’s song wasn’t good either. 
[5]

Jer Fairall: Spry and more than just a little bit pretty, this is at its liveliest when the players are allowed to go all out during the chorus. I just wish I found the vocal, perfectly pleasant as it is, to be as engaging as the melody and the instrumentation. 
[6]

Iain Mew: I start feeling like I’m meant to be gently uplifted by scenes I’ve just watched while the sun sets and the credits roll. It’s not an unpleasant feeling out of context, but it does mean that the song’s switch from twinkly to shouting joy in my face comes as a worse shock than it might have.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: Classic-rock vallenato, borrowing U2’s sweeping, non-specific inspiro-soar for a tune that could fit at home equally well in the mouths of Alan Jackson or Juan Luis Guerra. Accordion flourishes and a tuba solo prevent it from being utterly generic. 
[5]

Will Adams: The intro is like mainlining Sunny D, but as more instruments enter the arrangement builds into a satisfying jangle akin to — and pardon the left field comparison — Avril Lavigne’s “My World.” Carlos Vives doesn’t have the voice to match the brightness and strains to only reach halfway.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Great interplay: even when the spectrum threatens to puncture, you have faith the band will negotiate a settlement. Vives bellows his heart out, and the arrangement is here to cheer him up: by force, if necessary.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The transition from acoustic to full band was rough going at first, but it works despite the Colombian singer’s okay vocal. The fulsome interaction of shakers, horns, fiddle, and rhythm lick is fetching enough.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: A pop-rock ode to the joy of re-finding an old love, complete with a tuba bridge. Vives’s ever-soaring vocals sell it. 
[6]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: You can accuse Carlos Vives of doing basically the same thing for 20 years now, but it’s impossible to deny the efectiveness of his formula (He’s extremely influential to generations of Colombian artists). “Las Cosas de la Vida” contains all the elements that make his music great — pop-rock that somehow remains faithful to the structure and flavour of Vallenato — but, despite the always awesome accordion lines and the pleasant guitar work, it’s becoming increasingly harder for him to update his sound. It still feels like every other single in his career (and it definitely falls short compared to his classics), but the horn solo, and chord changes that came with it, indicate that progress is on the way. I wanted this song to go somewhere else after that. 
[5]