2016’s breakout star half convinces us he deserves it.

[Video][Website]
[6.33]

Gaya Sundaram: Anderson .Paak has been working on a few good ones as of late, and this collab with Snakehips is another. Anderson’s chill tone barely conceals his agitation, even slippingwhen talking about “goddamn lemons.” I swear, I could listen to the first verse on loop just for how he stresses the damn. And I could also listen to the second verse, where Anderson’s frustration starts to “bubble over.” But a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it attempt to build tension in the bridge doesn’t quite pan out. The percussion comes back to see out the song, but it’s not enough to adequately balance the latter half of “Money on Me.”
[6]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Ebullient electro-R&B with enough synth-shrewdness to capture your attention — and landing a beautiful wavy bridge in the process — but the real star is Anderson .Paak’s creamy, persuasive croon. How he commands this slow-but-thumping jam is evidence that he’s a force to be reckoned with. Not every day you hear a certain inflection and think: “We’re in the presence of real talent here,” and that’s why so many people won’t shut up about him.
[7]

Claire Biddles: Maybe the reason that “Money on Me” so perfectly evokes the American summer to me is that I’m from the UK and astonishingly, so are Snakehips — a non-native capturing the novelty of a place and a time creates a familiar fiction. I’ve seen and heard this fictional summer a thousand times before, but the addition of .Paak (who should guest on every single lazy summer jam this year and every year) makes it exciting and specific. 
[8]

Anthony Easton: The snare drums are almost as exciting as the piano slide; it deepens into something like a rattle. Even the vocals don’t provide a lot of flesh until Paak’s almost decorative tenor. Extra points for the chiptune electronic samples. 
[6]

Alfred Soto: The artist responsible for one of 2016’s best albums brings his amiable rasp to a protean track where drums, guitar passages, and Space Invaders synths provoke him into chanting and singing. Not that I imagine this becoming a hit, despite the money.
[6]

Juana Giaimo: Anderson .Paak’s raspy voice and confident attitude can’t seduce me. I’ll keep the money to myself. 
[5]

Cruising to victory without fuss.

[Video][Website]
[8.00]

Crystal Leww: The brand management with Katy B has always been awful throughout the entirety of her career, but it’s been particularly perplexing with Honey. Following the massive collaboration with KDA and Tinie Tempah, they went with the big brand name recognition approach and went with the Major Lazer and Craig David collaboration for the single. That could have been great, but the track was a goopy mess, and the album cycle suffered for it. She’s settled back into her underground, underdog house status here with a Chris Lorenzo collaboration. Lorenzo’s got a lot of underground credibility; he was a big house & bass ghostwriter for ten years before finally breaking out of his anonymous role a couple of years back. “I Wanna Be” is so much well-suited for Katy B. UK pop-house has been big for a couple of years, but Lorenzo’s style which is more bass-heavy is still not quite huge even though it’s probably not so hip for the underground anymore. It’s more than a fitting backdrop for Katy B, who gets to do what she does best, which is emote over a dance-forward pop production. There’s a straight line between the underrated “Broken Record” and “I Wanna Be.” For all the mainstream stories about guys stuck in the friendzone, I’m thrilled that Katy B has given a voice for the ladies who’ve felt it, too. This is gorgeous, hurt, pulsing, beautiful dance music made for corner of the room dancing and crying.
[9]

Micha Cavaseno: All of these dalliances like her collaborations with Ronson and Diplo have distracted us long enough: this is the realm where Katy shines. Few singers know how to craft their songs to a dance track. Chris Lorenzo’s house is rather tame, but Katy’s all stress and anxiety in her desire, edging off the softened corners. Granted, that weird pitch-shifted ‘wanna be’ sounds like the cry of some rare bird that can’t fly, but this track soars with an enviable grace.
[8]

Danilo Bortoli: Here is a quick comparison: If On A Mission is Katy B’s Rinse 02, then Honey is her very own Wired for Sound. And that says a lot, pretty much because “I Wanna Be” indicates Katy is getting back to the club and gently moving away from those once irritating ballads. For this, she enlists Chris Lorenzo, one of the most exciting producers to come around recently. Here, his approach is additive: he tries to improve what was already perfect. Which means that “I Wanna Be” is still club music about clubs — along with the realization that they sometimes can be sad, grim places. And that their music must be as nocturnal as it is supposed to be haunting. She means it literally this time around: “Don’t leave me here in the dark,” she warns. That phrase is supposed to sound like a commandment, but it comes off as a plea.
[9]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: I loved how long it took — a full verse-chorus cycle — for Lorenzo’s signature jackin’ beat to fully appear; it showed some welcome restraint and let Katy’s moody tone and natural magnetism lead those synths. Too bad that beat didn’t really take off, leaving this 2 a.m.-appropriate house-pop ditty underwhelming. A club-banger without much of a bang. 
[6]

Cassy Gress: I could just float away on all the “I wanna be”s. She says, “Don’t leave me here in the dark” and it sounds like that’s where she is.
[7]

Will Adams: “Anxiety’s a bitch,” sighs Katy, and the production agrees: An unstable chord progression, octave-leaping hook, sad piano twinkles, and pause given to a line as crushing as “You don’t know how good it is to dream of you.” The Honey singles had failed to grab me; “I Wanna Be” slaps me out of my haze. It’s the most immediate and urgent Katy B has been in a long while.
[9]

Alfred Soto: With an anonymous singer “I Wanna Be” would be a minor triumph; with Katy B it’s a new classic, the apotheosis of the Brit house revival. Her technical limitations dovetail with Chris Lorenzo’s willingness to manipulate her vocal: the title hook has echoes of Luther Vandross, Stevie B, and Spice Girls, and it’s not bunk.
[8]

I’m going to ruin your day by informing you that there is Pitbull/Enrique slash fiction. And no, I’m not sorry.

[Video][Website]
[4.75]

Anthony Easton: Iglesias’ verse is oddly sweet and light, floating from Pitbull’s mechanics like a lost sample from some Sam and Dean rip off, which makes the whole thing a smart example of production. 
[7]

Juana Giaimo: There is something in Pitbull that disgusts me — his rapping is dull and he thinks he is the best when he is actually pathetic. “Messin’ Around” is no exception. Besides, Enrique Iglesias never sounded so generic in a chorus section that drags on by featuring several attempts to be catchy which all fail one after the other. “I’m ready, girl, are you ready?” Nope. 
[3]

Alfred Soto: Dear god in heaven the “Heard it from a friend who…” bit with Enrique is the most charming thing Mr. 305’s done in years. What’s more, the boys play with the tired trope: messin’ around in this context means having a good time, showing your wares, and the rue in their voices suggest they like it that way. Or it could be two guys singing the hook to each other. After all, they’re messin’ around.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Last year was the first since 2008 in which Pitbull did not have a top 10 hit in the UK. A constant left pop culture with nary a flag flown half-mast, and perhaps that’s fired him up. He’s rapping with more urgency here than he often does, and from such a low base that 10% is audible. Everything else is laid-back, but not necessarily that fun. Enrique is enjoying himself though – still the guy who apologises about his mate, every night, every week, to the point that it’s almost as if the differences between them are merely superficial.
[5]

Brad Shoup: Pit strands the wordless singalong at the start; admittedly, I’m not a businessman. Still seems shortsighted. Nothing after that is juicier than Enrique’s California English. It’s pieces of pure pop, strewn along a throwback snap production. It’s just not dumb enough.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: The homoeroticism of these two singing this song to each other is extinguished by the fact that Iglesias doesn’t sound like Iglesias, he doesn’t sound like anyone, or anything. Did Pitbull build a Latin Vocaloid? He’s going to get so rich if so.
[3]

Cassy Gress: It’s sort of strange to me that Pitbull and his perfectly round head put out the most agreeable proposition song I’ve heard in months. It’s a pretty simple song, but it knows it and doesn’t try to do anything too crazy — even when he and Enrique “break it down right quick” it doesn’t amount to much more than additional voices. I’m not sure why Enrique is here though, as he’s filtered so heavily that he may as well just be pitch-shifted Pitbull.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Tame by Pitbull’s standards, and the only people who are gonna get the REO Speedwagon reference are 45 and over — is that really the audience he’s going for? Iglesias is aural wallpaper here. 
[3]

Hello dvrkness my old friend…

[Video][Website]
[3.60]

Edward Okulicz: I’m not entirely convinced the arrangement of this wasn’t originally intended for, you know, Susan Boyle or someone.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Learned Saint Etienne don Bob Stanley has described this as sounding “like a Big Train sketch without the visuals”. On one level, it’s hard to disagree: this song is absurd. But it’s easy from there to fall into a flat-out refusal to engage, let alone take it seriously. Even without the actual visuals of this Conan performance, it’s a cover of audibly utmost sincerity that takes it from intimately crushing to something of swooping majesty, a clarion call to doom rather than a quiet one. Simon & Garfunkel’s “tenement halls” were desolate and muted; Disturbed’s are more like a castle’s. If you want it to be, it’s moving.
[7]

Lauren Gilbert: Pretty sure I would have preferred the sound of actual silence.
[1]

Micha Cavaseno: There was never a soul in metal who truly wishes he could’ve won American Idol more than David Draiman. There’s truly nothing wrong with this cover beyond Draiman’s overeager embellishments, a chance to show his range now that he isn’t shackled with the demands of rocking out. But it’s something about Disturbed’sr desperation to perform, to entertain, to service. The best of metal is powerful and commanding, but serves best in its ineptitude and refusal to adhere to smarter decisions (look at Sabbath’s debut, it’s so lovable despite having the worst stolen Zeppelin and Cream ideas of their generation). Tragically, that’s a message that most metal enthusiasts, who are split between a group of infantile lifestyle brandishers with as little tact or sense of moderation as fursuiters or people who use metal as a zany element of off-key “radness” like bacon, oddball comedy quotes or catchphrase t-shirts. Metal was always a domain for those who didn’t fit in and needed to feel like they could realize their best, but now it’s a welcome home for fools to shamelessly embrace their worst.
[3]

Jer Fairall: I’ll say this for Disturbed: unlike the actual worst cover of 2016, “The Sound of Silence” does not represent a misreading of the source material so horrifying that it could have only been rooted in contempt for the original, nor is it even, like the funniest cover in recent memory, entirely the result of a tragically dunderheaded earnestness. No, Disturbed get exactly what it is about lyrics like “Hello darkness, my old friend” or “the people bowed and prayed / to the neon God they made” that makes them adaptable to growly vocals and pompously cinematic string arrangements and thus go about absurdly inflating everything that was elegant and haunting and beautifully zeitgeisty out of Paul and Art’s original. But if “The Sound of Silence” was always, in fact, drivel, that was an illusion I could have kept on living with.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: This cover lumbers through all its added un-silence with catlike tread, and each word is weighed down with additional pomp. But I weaned myself on too much questionable stuff to dislike this Manowar duetting with Sarah Brightman, Ted Neeley doing Jesus Christ Superstar so long he thinks he’s actually Jesus-ass track nearly as much as a Disturbed cover of “The Sound of Silence” deserves. David Draiman sings fine, albeit in a self-consciously “legit,” guy-in-your-vocal-recital-who’s-actually-a-CS-major-but-has-hidden–depths fashion. And at least they resisted the no doubt potent temptation to retrofit the lyrics into a +3 Reddit comment about sheeple. People thought the original was a joke, too.
[5]

Cassy Gress: This is one of those songs where you know what it will sound like as soon as you see the artist and title.  Or you think you do, anyway. Instead we got some weird “My Immortal” ripoff, crossed with the soundtrack for a national park tourism video. Go take a listen to the original, any random bit of it, and even if you don’t like that sound, compare to how painfully overwrought and plodding this is.
[1]

Brad Shoup: “‘Sounds of Silence’ actually became a running joke,” Dave Van Ronk says in Paul Simon: A Life. “For a while there, it was only necessary to start singing ‘Hello darkness, my old friend…’ and everybody would crack up.” This is historic: the one time Greenwich Village was ahead of the curve on anything. It wasn’t just the words, to be fair: folkies looked at Art & Paul and saw Tom & Jerry. But it was also the words! “The Sound of Silence” posits Simon as the resistance leader during some emotional apocalypse: fluffed phrasing and self-conscious writing tricks gum the works. If Tom Wilson hadn’t directed two electric guitarists to sound like half-speed surf, I don’t know that this tune would’ve gotten as major. It was the kind of clever condescension that Simon shed as he heard the wider world. But in the hands of Disturbed! There’s no worry about being condescended to with Disturbed. You might get hummed at — David Draiman doesn’t really do vibrato so much, just sustain. When he takes off, though — girded with timpani hits and endless string swells — it’s great. Sure, it’s a “Mad World” for people who listen to “Mad World” too much as it is, but it’s also the kind of poorly-considered sap we didn’t know we were snacking on all along. 
[6]

Mark Sinker: CHOON!
[2]

Iain Mew: *stares haunted into the distance for the duration of everyone else’s blurbs* …I first came across this the same day as the meme using the original. One way they both lose out in common to the unadorned original is an emphasis solely on the despair of the first line, a large part of their reason for being. It’s a small detail, but taking “old friend” as bleak sarcasm as a starting point, neglecting the possibility of comfort, takes out a lot of the narrative tension. Even as Disturbed escalate the song to full superhero movie sized spectacle, they lose some of its power because the plot is always so apparent.
[4]

Yes, we’re going to talk about sex so mabe these idiots will learn something.

[Video][Website]
[1.75]

Abby Waysdorf: So this song is just bland enough for me to not actually pay attention when I hear it out in the world, only to be surprised by the chorus. “Hey! I know that song! I like that song! Wait, it’s some weird version.” And then I forget it when the chorus goes away, only to be surprised *again*. Anyway, it makes me angry each time. Listening to it for review shows that it’s even worse than I thought. Fuck this song.
[0]

Crystal Leww: No no no no no no no no no no no no no (no no no no no no)
[0]

Iain Mew: The chorus in this context comes across like the way politicians say “let’s talk about immigration”. Not with any intention of limiting their options by really saying anything about it, just so that they can get across the idea of having talked about it, and pretend that was really daring.
[3]

Josh Winters: The score represents how long this dude would last.
[1]

Will Adams: Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be. But mostly the bad things
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: The last time this site covered Cheat Codes, a third of all blurbs referenced Owl City, the pop music imago of purposeful immaturity and perpetual childhood. Since sonically this doesn’t diverge too far from that path, it is faintly disconcerting quite how the subject matter does. There’s nothing sexy about the word sex; Salt-N-Pepa were not trying to make it so. Nonetheless, Cheat Codes have made a worse job of it.
[4]

Cassy Gress: I very much dislike this video, but the song itself has one of those shivery vibrato guys tripping his way through a Salt-n-Pepa song, and manages to sound neither like a seduction song nor like a post-sex song, while using terrible turns of phrase such as “I’ll eat you like a cannibal” and “do it in the shower, pussy power.”
[3]

Brad Shoup: The verses and chorus are two separate crimes: the latter jacks the ebullient frankness of a familiar jam about (safe!) sex so it can be rammed into the Andy Stitzer dialogue of the former. The Salt-n-Pepa rip is the most egregious, but I swear they’ve also gone after Sisqo and Ellie Goulding. Pretty cynical, and we don’t even get a tune out of the deal.
[1]

Alfred Soto: Real chipmunks can talk about sex, not pitch-altered ones. And about Salt-n-Pepa too.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: A pop record from the Spinnin’ Records hit factory, with unbelievably bland vocals interpolating Salt-N-Pepa with no imagination whatsoever. Having sex with this idiot would be like having sex with a married Republican Congressman. [Also, who thought “Kris Kross Amsterdam” was a good idea?]
[0]

Megan Harrington: When I was 11 I badly wanted to watch South Park so I could be cool and have friends like everyone else in my 6th grade class. My mom agreed to watch an episode with me and reserve judgement until it ended. God, it was a riot. Kenny died, Cartman’s cheesy poofs — I was so ready to talk to the kids at school. That was, until my mom turned to me and asked, “What’s a carpet muncher?” And I told her, “It’s a person who eats carpeting from the floor.” Without explanation, I was deemed not adult enough for South Park. Though they have access to Urban Dictionary, Cheat Codes x Kris Kross Amsterdam are not adult enough for sex. Please see a doctor if your genitals are in any way cinnamon-y. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: And I’m a twerp.
[1]

And finally, from the soundtrack to Alice: Through the Looking Glass, “Just Like A Pill Fire”…

[Video][Website]
[3.78]

Scott Mildenhall: Sixteen years deep into her time at pop’s top table, P!nk’s trademark exceptionalism looks a bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most girls don’t manage that longevity; not many people could be like that, and so she definitely is different, but on this occasion still remarkably familiar. “Just Like Fire” is the midpoint between “Raise Your Glass”, “Perfect” and “Are We All We Are”, and that mix of semi-inclusive reassurance and unobtrusive soft rock seems right for a family adventure film about, but she’s capable of much more memorable.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: This isn’t a song, it’s a clip reel of radio formats.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: Could this be more focus-grouped for maximum Adult Top 40 saturation and domination? Acoustic guitar, subtle electronic beats, “strong woman” narrative, and I loathe pretty much every element of it. 
[2]

Brad Shoup: A dustsweeping alt-rock acoustic progression paired with one bluesy vocal turnaround and what feels like thirty shouty folk-pop collectives. Was “True Love” really almost three years ago?
[4]

Mark Sinker: p!nk remains punk [insert bitter humpty dumpty emoji here]
[6]

Alfred Soto: P!nk’s last few singles have been straight fire, and when she announces “I want it all, mmhmm” over folk guitar strums she’s dousing herself with gasoline. This time the subject is herself: where she’s been, where she’s going. Not much about where she is, though, which may indicate a problem; I get suspicious when fame becomes a star’s muse.
[7]

Cassy Gress: This barely sounds like P!nk at all — where is that signature rasp? Did she toss this off in an afternoon? Why is there that nearly pentatonic run in the choruses, “No one can be just like me anyway,” where she has to go into her falsetto for notes that are normally not in her range?  Who came up with that terrible, terrible clippy “We can get em running” crap? What on earth made her or anyone think that the half-hearted “uh-huh”s served any useful purpose? And the rap, oh my god. There is no fire in her voice anywhere in this; it’s like the ten worst movie tie-in songs of the last 20 years amalgamated into one.
[0]

Will Adams: P!nk was always able to distinguish herself from her pop contemporaries through the sheer power of her voice, unapologetically scratchy and forceful. So it’s perplexing why it’s downplayed so much on “Just Like Fire,” between the shouty backing vox and the awful rap, which sounds like she had memorized it 20 minutes before recording. “No one can be just like me anyway” would be a positive in another context, but not here.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Pink’s elevated some ho-hum material in the past with her surprisingly big voice, unerring pop instincts and rock-star confidence. When any of those are absent, the whole package falls apart: Pink sounds subdued, the “rap” bit is ill-advised and her attitude is if not tamed then mild by choice. I suspect this will be big based on name alone, but I doubt it’s what a lot of people want in the first single from a Pink album.
[4]

We can rarely resist synchronicity…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Alfred Soto: A superior tune with a dull conceit — compare how the guitars rock with Ruth B’s gormless treatment of same.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: In case you weren’t sure that Kelsea Ballerini might be the heir apparent to Carrie Underwood, here’s your evidence: a dreamy, mid-tempo ode/cautionary tale about a boy who refuses to “be a man.” It’s not as cut-and-dried as that, though, because it nails its elegiac tone, and that’s what gives me all the Carrie vibes. Ballerini isn’t as strong a singer, but this song is certainly as strong as much of Underwood’s catalog. Welcome to the big leagues, Kelsea.
[8]

Anthony Easton: I don’t quite get the hype. The voice sounds generic, and the production is stale. She also tries to get too much information into very limited space. Minus a point for not embodying the full range of emotions — this would be more interesting with either anger or contempt. 
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Solid curtsying-out midtempo breakup track, even if the conceit cuts the boy too much slack; never attribute to flightiness what might be more adequately explained by manipulation.
[6]

Brad Shoup: The heft isn’t emotional, it’s experiential: as the band drops into the chorus like sinking shoulders, Ballerini renders her verdict with a sigh. There’s no real remorse or recrimination here, just recognition. The kick drum functions as her resting heart rate.
[8]

Cassy Gress: I’m sick of “head up in the clouds” and “can’t keep your feet on the ground” as metaphors for flightiness. This plods along in an unmagical way, while she debates whether “man” and “pan” are pronounced as “maayyan” and “paayyan” or not, and eventually settles for a diphthong somewhere in the middle.
[4]

Iain Mew: The timelessness of the metaphors feels part of the point, Ballerini consigning her ex to a place in a long line of irresponsible men. The music’s fluid sway sighs along with her and lets her shift the balance between (self/)condemnation and affection with each detail.
[7]

Crystal Leww: The fact that Kelsea Ballerini dueted this with Nick Jonas at the ACMs earlier this month makes sense. If Jonas makes music about how getting hurt closed him off emotionally to women, then Ballerini in “Peter Pan” is the girl who tried again and again to get him to open up and commit. This is so crazy relatable to girls who are growing up and dating now that I’m not at all surprised that Ballerini has built a massive fanbase of women fans. This is wonderful, and Ballerini becoming a massive star is well-deserved.
[7]

It’s Vaguely Related To Recent Children’s-Book Adaptations Day! First up, an unlikely Vine hit…

[Video][Website]
[2.50]

Jer Fairall: No, your fifth-grade book report on Peter Pan would not make a good song.
[1]

Iain Mew: The lack of any adornment is initially compelling, and that stretches to the way Ruth B sings it as well. It puts a lot of emphasis on the lyrics, though, in which she fails to wring much out of an endless string of Peter Pan references. The low point is a couplet that both tries to rhyme “woods” and “Hook” and places the characters as always on the run but bored and playing.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: There’s an unadorned quality to this that reminds me of Amanda Perez’s “Angel,” the sort of thing it’s pleasantly surprising to remember charted. But “unadorned” does not alone a virtue make. The problem isn’t that “Peter Pan” was written in Vine-length intervals; all songwriting (or writing, or craft) looks that banal if broken down to its mechanical steps. The problem is how literal it all is.
[4]

Alfred Soto: She lost me the moment she sang about the man on the moon ignoring her. She doesn’t even fuck with the title’s gender play. Après lui, les références a Peter Pan.
[1]

Brad Shoup: She lost me until the “cloud of green” bit. Still, she’s got to get a better strain if she wants better Peter Pan hallucinations.
[1]

Anthony Easton: I like that she’s from my hometown. Edmonton’s jazz program, which she went to, is pretty well known for piano and vocals, mostly very dull. The town itself has an indie singer-songwriter scene and has not really discovered irony yet. There is also a substantial East African diaspora, especially Eritrean and Somali, who do some interesting things in the backrooms of restaurants after eleven. I have heard more than a few recitals that sound like this, and I am not suggesting the diaspora should sound one way, but the Edmonton sound could be roughed up a bit. Also, you can tell where Ruth cut to make a six-second single. 
[4]

Cassy Gress: “Lost Boy” drags on way too long, and Ruth B clips off the ends of phrases oddly, such as “Neverland is home to lost boys like me / And lost boys like me are free.” There are plenty of other phrases where she lets the note end more naturally, which means that that cut-off is intentional; maybe she’s trying to sound like a little kid? If there is an emotional center to this, it’s lost on me.
[2]

Juana Giaimo: I can’t tolerate the sugary metaphors about loneliness and the hopefulness in the drama of running away, but I know that my 15-year-old self would have found some company in all of it.
[5]

Swedish rock of which we kind of approve!

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Alfred Soto: The guitars chug with the right pitch on this Swedish band’s single; the peals that echo the chorus are reminiscent of bits in late ’90s rock radio tunes by the Wallflowers. Memorable now, I suppose, for those on a nostalgia trip.
[6]

Cassy Gress: They say it themselves: “a monotone verse needs a strong chorus.” This has a stronger chorus than the more hushed verses, but I’m not sure I’d actually call it strong. It feels like an anthem as a going-away present; this is Kent’s last album and last tour, and I can hear this chorus maybe being sung at protests or marches. The trouble with this kind of song though is when it tries to pull the heartstrings a bit too hard; the pause after the first “one foot in the grave, among lilacs and students” is effective, but the second time it just feels tacky.
[5]

Iain Mew: Is it just me or is the tentative opening riff vaguely Calvin Harris? It doesn’t proceed along those lines in sound, unsurprisingly, but there is a certain similarity in the functional application of template. There’s a conviction here that there’s no problem with making the most obvious soft rock anthem ever is as long as you do everything within it well enough. They’re not totally wrong.
[6]

Will Adams: I go back and forth with the processing on “Egoist.” On one hand, the perfect quantization makes the song run like clockwork. On the other, the vocal layers are stacked like bricks. That chorus would soar in any medium, though, so I’ll award another point.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Sturdy pop-rock whose ascents and descents are as predictable as breathing. I kinda want to hear this with an impolite slathering of Auto Tune.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: I’ve been a fan of Kent for 15 years or so now, but it took this song sounding eerily in places like “With or Without You” (you can sing parts of the verses of that over this and it scans perfectly) for the realisation that they’ve gradually become Sweden’s U2 to finally dawn. The crisp sound makes it easy for me to overlook how beige and vacuous the attempts at anthemics are, and the charge of that chorus recalls perhaps their best, most immediate single (the stiff-limbed disco rock of 2000’s “Music Non Stop”), but the tone and tenor are more like previous album’s “La Belle Epoque.” As more of their singles have a rage that’s directed outward rather than focusing on the personal or interpersonal, it’s harder to grasp onto something that transcends my nascent understanding of the language and ignorance of the context, yet I still find much to enjoy in Kent’s well-crafted, consistent pop-rock.
[8]

It’s been almost exactly five years since we last covered her…

[Video][Website]
[5.83]

Juana Giaimo: It must be really hard to sing all the cliché metaphors of this song and still sound passionate and genuine. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: Pointing out how a song fails to live up to its title is facile criticism. Yet. Okay, fine, but Martina McBride sang “Love’s the Only House” and “Independence Day.” In 2010 she released “Teenage Daughters.” We know she never sat on fences.
[4]

Anthony Easton: McBride has one of the great pure voices in the history of country, and she knows how to use it. I am not sure that she has gone full diva, meltdown, imperial stage, for all of her skill at the melodramatic pause and the reach-for-the stars, un-throttled voice. The juxtaposition between a song so controlled and the lyrical content about the dissolution of self is so oppressive, it comes very close.  
[8]

Brad Shoup: With its portrait of unfathomable grace — whisked with banjo swipes and Edge-style guitar — McBride’s ended up with a real nice modern worship song.
[5]

Cassy Gress: Strange. The entire theme of the song is about someone saving her from her own self-destructiveness, but if I ignore the lyrics and just listen to what the song sounds like, I hear a redemptive love song, and not any inkling of the self-destructiveness. Listen to how tight her vowels are, especially on “out of control, so criminal.”  It would make sense, I guess, if this song is supposed to take place after she’s been redeemed, but she explicitly says it’s not: “I know I’m reckless, you must be reckless too.” I don’t need this to sound necessarily like she’s singing it hungover on the kitchen floor, but something about this is too tidy.
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Crystal Leww: I’m impressed by how much legacy country women artists have done to try to update the sound in the last few years. “Reckless” still sounds a little bit old fashioned, but this is uptempo, and that tin guitar is a surprisingly cute touch. McBride can still sing and emote and still makes you feel. As far as legacy country artist singles go, this is less good than “Going Out Like That” but way better than anything Tim McGraw’s done in years. 
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