“I was wondering if you could play that song again, the one that goes, ‘Beep boop boop bop/boop boop beep’…”

[Video][Website]
[5.25]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s the return of the return of the man with the hat, and it’s fitting that such a faintly ludicrous figure should mark it with a faintly ludicrous song. Not many British musicians seem so popularly maligned (and yet historically, so popular), and this won’t change it: it is all over the place. For a man who’s often shown an ear for a tune, the verses are disappointingly directionless; if more of the song were like the chorus section (if you can call it that), it would be in the ballpark of his best. Add in that Sugarhill-style rap, and it’s as if he’s so excited to return that he cannot concentrate.
[6]

Iain Mew: An overfamiliar melody doesn’t bode well for an inspired comeback, and almost loses me. Their new and surprisingly fresh-sounding commitment to clean synthetic lines (just) keeps me hanging on.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: The odd world where Jamiroquai learn the lessons of their evil progeny Maroon 5, attempt go for Daft Punk, end up going further, bypassing Jamie Lidell’s Self-Titled and hitting Cybotron territory, but still manage to pop out of it sounding like themselves? It’s moments like this you forget for the novelty of the hat and how easily acid jazz became elevator music that Jamiroquai were a phenomenal group with an eclectic personality. It takes a lot for me to find a middle-aged white Brit doing a old-school rap breakdown charming, but there you go.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The thought that twentysomethings would consider exhumations of Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder signifiers novel in 1996-1997 said much about the state of music, and not much has changed. Now Jamiroquai needs no exhumations — why would he when Daft Punk still bump into walls wearing their helmets? Don’t even mention Bruno Mars.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: Makes a compelling case for Jamiroquai as will.i.am predecessor.
[3]

Natasha Genet Avery: I’ve always preferred Jamiroquai’s smarmy funk homages to their shallow social critiques. “Automaton”, which was inspired by “the rise of artificial intelligence and technology,” feels particularly empty, the laser synths and Jay Kay’s outdated vocabulary (“digital android!” “cyber lounge!”) a poor substitute for an actual understanding of AI.
[4]

Ramzi Awn: Cut the track at three minutes and it would be a perfect anomaly. The rap breakdown is cringeworthy but Jamiroquai’s Supremes-era sensibility is impressive, and the bold synths don’t hurt.    
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: Though Jamiroquai ditches fluffy jazz chords for spiky synth bleeps, “Automaton” still hinges upon a sense of nostalgia. He navigates electronics like the funk heads of the past just discovering Kraftwerk; he channels the man machine for the title like them too. The result is a rather outdated view of a robot-filled future, but the innocence of his imagination makes this worth its time.
[6]

More like MEHvolution amirite…

[Video][Website]
[4.20]

Thomas Inskeep: Not here. 
[3]

Alfred Soto: “Where’s the revolution/C’mon, people, you’re lettin’ me down” made sense in July 2016 when I realized the Dems had nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton and dispassion was the craze. In February 2017 I aim the lines at Depeche Mode Inc, reprocessing their idea of R&B referents from 1993’s Songs of Faith and Devotion and more distortion this side of an AM frequency. I prefer Dave Gahan to lecture me on pleasures, little treasures, masters and servants, and the policy of truth; otherwise he sounds like a wino in a Starbucks line.
[5]

Will Adams: The grinding electronics and gangly meter feel like classic Depeche, but the lyrics are stuffy. It’s not as if this kind of shallowly political song hasn’t existed for a while — Muse’s “Uprising” immediately sprang to my mind for its similar inability to provoke, and the invocation of an unnamed “they” is everywhere — but it’s easy to diagnose as another entry in a recent trend of vague protest music that thinks it’s adequate to simply raise questions and shrug its shoulders.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Morose death-bloops, snide vocals, enough fascist imagery in the video to appeal to the punchables: a Depeche Mode song. Two out of three of these are reliably good things. The Bush-era message (of all the things that got us here, religion isn’t one) and botched 6/8 (note the second “where’s the revolution”) are not.
[4]

David Sheffieck: The lyric’s pointed but open to interpretation – is it earnest or sarcastic, angry or detached? Does it say anything at all? But the music speaks apocalypse as only Depeche Mode can: grinding and flickering, punishingly throbbing, it’s distinctly their own and instantly recognizable, and somehow still more immediate and vital than artists half their age.
[7]

Jessica Doyle: I was happy to sit and let those woozy vocals wash over me until I realized they were in the service of lazy lecturing. One point, though, for that “train is comin’” bit’s sluggish echo of Dal*Shabet’s dorawa dorawa dorawa, and one more because I’m pretty sure Dave Gahan is cosplaying Oswald Mosley in the video.
[4]

Claire Biddles: I’m too predisposed to Depeche Mode’s default sonics to fully dislike this but man, it’s a trying listen — the whole thing drags, and its on-the-nose lyrics are clunky enough to make me wince. Depeche Mode are better and more nuanced when they’re reflecting on the internal rather than the external: The wake-up-sheeple tone of “Where’s the Revolution” reminds me of when Muse ~do politics~; preaching a generic call-to-arms to the converted. 
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think Martin Gore had a lot of great many subversive lyrics in him. There was certainly a wink-wink/nudge-nudge obsession with darker themes, not to mention his occasional political tipping of the hat, but if anything the Depeche Mode discography is pretty much run-of-the-mill in ideas for fake deep songwriting all throughout pop if you’re into leather jackets. Production-wise, Depeche Mode continue as they do, with lame guitars thrown in for no reason, Gahan sounding maudlin, and a lot of decent electronic blips that would’ve complimented a record under the “Electronica” category back in ’02. But lyrically Gore proves that honestly, he shouldn’t try to speak on the world, because he’s never had anything of real insight to say there.
[3]

Ramzi Awn: “Where’s the Revolution” fails to offend and succeeds at staying its course. Boasting a perfectly serviceable melody that Grace Slick could have done better, Depeche Mode dapples this near-hit with sparks of life. 
[5]

Lilly Gray: Really gonna light a fire under your quiet cousin.
[4]

All aboard the Controversy Express, operated by the one and only Pat Monahan…

[Video][Website]
[2.58]

Josh Winters: Why would you play that song when you can play that Vine?
[0]

Will Adams: The only possibilities to conclude after hearing this excruciating piece of cynical, base-covering, pandering shit-pop are: a) Pat Monahan is that douchebag who likes to hijack the aux cord and put on “Heart and Soul” because that annoys people and annoying people is fun; or b) Pat Monahan really is that irrevocably corny and clueless.
[0]

Katie Gill: It’s nice to see that Train have embraced their status as corny. Songs like “50 Ways To Say Goodbye” toed the line between corny and serious, but with “Play That Song,” a song that bases its chorus on a reinterpretation of “Heart and Soul,” Train go full-tilt corny. And really, that makes me love it all the more. Train have embraced what they’re good at. Easily the best part of songs like “50 Ways To Say Goodbye” and “Drive By” were the goofy lyrics and even goofier musical motifs. “Play That Song” certainly isn’t perfect; in fact, I wish it were cheesier. But for a piece of perfectly corny, cheesy, ridiculous dad pop, I kind of love it.
[7]

Hannah Jocelyn: Sampling “Heart and Soul” is not exactly a crime like Sean Kingston sampling “Stand By Me” or even Jason Derulo further ruining “Hide and Seek” years after it appeared on SNL, but the sample is just baffling because of the 80-year-old song’s… it’s an 80-year-old song. It’s more like sampling “Chopsticks” or “Fur Elise,” more to elicit a “wait what” reaction than a “how dare you.” And that’s the feeling I keep getting from this song. For starters, there’s the line in the chorus about Pat Monahan — and later, the female protagonist — going “oooh-ooh,” as well as the lamest delivery of “hey mr. DJ” ever (unless Karmin covered “Pon De Replay” at some point). Then there’s the bridge, where Monahan still continues to show just how much he loves that one vowel sound. Of course, that’s not to mention the ridiculous production, with a simplistic drum beat and horns that make absolutely no aesthetic sense with the rest of the song. At this point, all these sorts of silly moments are expected from Train, the Benjamin Button of pop music, but that doesn’t make it any more of a pleasant listen. 
[3]

William John: If this were geared towards small children I might be more generous, but this is Train, a band that has portended to address adult relationships since the sweeping “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” sixteen years ago. As such, I simply cannot rationalise the audacity of firstly sampling something so hopelessly stale as “Heart and Soul,” and then doubling down on the gall by re-lyricising it with lines like “Hey Mr. Guitar/When you gonna strum it?” Hideous, sapless and interminable, this is the sort of beastly document I presume is listened to by persons who eat boiled hotdogs before settling down on the couch for a screening of Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.
[0]

Alfred Soto: I don’t understand “mood music.” Slithering to a computer or stereo system to cue a Roxy Music track in the hopes that my fella will loosen his belt strikes me as antithetical to the idea of both seduction and music — I listen to music as a simulacrum to seduction or an escape from seduction. Moreover, I don’t envisage making out and possible sex as a scene in a three-act play either. So I’m hostile to this halitotic singer begging the unfortunate woman to play the song that keeps him hard. We know he’s desperate because the band uses a drum machine — only losers resort to dance cliches (see: The Chainsmokers).
[1]

Scott Mildenhall: Q: What kind of train only reaches its destination about once every five years? A: Train, as in the band Train, of “patchier hit rate than a lottery ticket” fame. Pat’n’Pals must just be taking their time though, because it can’t be easy to dream up broad-brush singalongs like this, “Drops of Jupiter” and “Drive By” in a rush. (“Hey, Soul Sister” is terrible.) The original “Heart and Soul” is passionless by comparison — where that is happy to simply lilt, Soy Latte Pat reaches for the notes, singing out his ecstasy.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Patrick Monahan is the truest punk. He has the vocal ability of a nematode. His lyrics have purposefully descended into the most banal cliches with heartless abandon. This man’s band pushes wine, chocolates and family vacation packages. There is no shame, there is no sense of ambition. All he does is win. Train exist outside of the fringes of acceptable behavior for a band. They most assuredly don’t even play their own instruments on the record and would be profoundly amused that you expect them to bother. Train is the sound of “DGAF, we want your money and we will not give you the show, but you’ll give it to us no matter what.” What is it like to be a band who has no sense to go as far into the dark recesses of uncool as possible? I shudder to think.
[2]

Ramzi Awn: Suburban soul for SUVs has its place, but this isn’t it.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: You know those video game remixes where people try to write lyrics to World 1-1 or whatever and they’re always terribly contrived and on-the-nose? This is the professional version of that.
[1]

Brad Shoup: Train are the connoisseur’s Sad Band. Nickelback’s numbers are too large, and there was that time Chad Kroeger stole 5 Seconds of Summer’s goddamn cover story without leaving his laptop. Smash Mouth? Dunking on their social media person is the pastime of dorks on Twitter — fantastic website, by the way, I highly recommend — who like to pretend they would’ve spent their DSA dues on a carton of Pall Malls. But Train! They hit enough that their striving isn’t pathetic, and each album’s good for a seriously-dad lyrical turn. I think Pat’s the only original member, and I know I saw him guest on CSI:NY once. Yeah, this is great. It’s a true heel turn: Monahan affects an opioid drawl while harassing musicians into playing some garbage his girlfriend’s just heard. “When you gonna play that song?” this perfect dirtbag mewls. “When you gonna earn that pay?” Only a middle-aged touring act — a true Sad Band — would be able to write and deliver something that mean. And all this happens over perhaps the most basic melody in American culture: “Heart and Soul,” the worst thing to happen to pianos until Annea Lockwood. In case you still don’t get it, they thread crowd noise into the climax. It sounds like the ghost of dirtbags to come, ready to set this middle finger alight and hold it high. I’ve never heard these guys so happy.
[8]

David Sheffieck: I love Train at their best, which makes it hard to say this: “Play That Song” is everything Train haters say Train is.
[1]

Uncredited vocalists? Australian dance music veterans can do it too!

[Video][Website]
[5.60]

Claire Biddles: Bratty vocals! Predictable drops! RAVE PIANO! Sometimes the most obvious things are the most charming, and “Chameleon” is a satisfyingly uncomplicated banger.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: A fun bit of ear candy that wants exactly nothing more and nothing less than to be a fun piece of ear candy. It’s a pity, though, that the vocalist (Kira Divine, who is listed only as the “Dancer” in the Youtube description) doesn’t get her name plastered all over this thing, since she carries ninety percent of the song’s weight with her precise, razor-sharp delivery. The other ten percent of the song is carried by those awkwardly bright MIDI piano chord stabs, which I sincerely hope end up back in style again.
[7]

Will Adams: The breakdowns are glorious, and I would have liked their major-key ebullience to be carried into the drops. “Chameleon” opts for contrast instead, and it barely sustains its energy between the choruses thanks to Kira Divine’s vocal.
[6]

David Sheffieck: Sunny and slight, the vocal effects ultimately weigh this down (and the failure to even credit vocalist Kira Divine drops it another two points: “bad food and the portions were so small” in song format). She’s rendered tinny enough to become grating, even as the production manages a decently upbeat hook and a half. The song chirps positively enough that I wouldn’t mind it in a club where a DJ could remix it better than Pnau have here.
[3]

Ramzi Awn: Built for the right place at the right time, “Chameleon” is not made for the indoors. Better heard on a rooftop or at a block party, the sun-soaked head-bopper is infectiously joyful. The trembling synths usher in a corral of voices that ultimately win you over. 
[7]

William John: The self-titled Pnau record — the most ubiquitous Modular album that wasn’t actually released by Modular — is now ten years old. Other than nostalgic tweets I’ve observed little to substantiate claims that “bloghaus is back,” and though this self-described “bonkers” single doesn’t quite fit that mould, it’s the closest recent approximation to it in the charts that I can recall. The track itself seems to hover constantly on a precipice, flirting with a drop that never arrives, but the building blocks shimmer lustily like the sky at beginning of a warm summer evening. A shoutout to uncredited vocalist Shakira Marshall — aka Kira Divine — proving that the much-maligned Kelli-Leigh syndrome in modern dance music continues unabated.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: This doesn’t make up for the continued lack of the reported follow-up to Pnau’s 2012 Elton John collage, but it will suffice. It bends time in a similar way, too, albeit to a lesser extent. Taking a drop of Basement Jaxx and a drop of Soundboy Rock-era Groove Armada, it’s a joyful anachronism. Accordingly, it might well be culturally dubious too — at least the aforementioned may have given credit to Shakira Marshall.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Functional and pretty energetic in a jubilant way. At the same time, once you get past the unique characteristics found in the tribal edge, a lot of this track becomes really run of the mill, and leaves you feeling really hollow with disappointment. Songs who wear masks to pretend they’re more than who they are don’t earn their place in the world, and it’s a discredit to their potential.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Two-thirds of this is the grating tunelessness I imagine people who didn’t like Icona Pop heard in “I Love It.” The rest isn’t distinctive enough to wait around for.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: The opening “All right! Let’s goooooo!” is infectious and catchy, and other scraps of this are equally so: especially the piano, and the bassline which reminds me of Groove Armada’s “Superstylin’.” Some cool sounds, brattish attitude, but the verses meander a little much and I hunger for something a bit more obnoxious to go with Shakira Marshall’s sass.
[7]

Norwegian singer-songwriter makes his debut…

[Video][Website]
[6.17]

Katherine St Asaph: Isolating the worst part of a crush is sort of like isolating the worst part of being vaporized alive, but the most humiliating part is the asymmetry of it. Barring the kind of horrific confessions no one wants to hear, even from their crushes, or the odds-defying luck to have it both reciprocated and done so without manipulative intent, you’ve fallen into the wrong side of a power play, where someone out there, unknowingly, has usurped your mind into a device for generating imagined impossible conversations or company. It’s at once public and lonely. Online metrics leave a trail back to you, being around people involves all sorts of lovely revealing behavior; if they wanted to, they would have known weeks or months or years ago, and if they didn’t want to, that’s the entire fear. But mostly this takes place in minds and rooms alone. “Glimpse of Hope,” after some dubiously frontloaded Scando Damien Riceisms, depicts the atmosphere there uncannily accurately, somewhere between Vulnicura and Fever Ray. The trap drums suggest impatience; the opera pads and faraway guitars suggest yearning. There’s a fine line between this and stalking, though, and Bech walks close enough to it to distance the listener, though no closer than “Something I Can Never Have” did. (“On the Street Where You Live” didn’t age well either.) But it nails the 2 a.m. loathing, a near-ideal staring-into-contacts-lists-pretending-to-beam-thoughts-through soundtrack. We all need them.
[9]

Scott Mildenhall: The use of Nils Bech’s powerful “Waiting” in the trailer for the most recent series of Skam was inspired, if not entirely consistent with the story it prefaced. It is, however, fairly representative of Bech, and no less than on “Glimpse of Hope”. He’s an idiosyncratic singer with an impressive range, both of which he regularly harnesses to their full in the realisation of his inclination towards emotional exposure like this. Awkward feelings, thoughts and behaviour are presented untidied; stalkerish perambulating and friends’ concern both bluntly denied a metaphor. It’s jarring, and the lack of hedging seems bound to put some people off, but that’s indicative of the greatest thing about it: that, crestfallen in his electronic cathedral of sorrow, Nils Bech would be uncowed.
[9]

Iain Mew: “Glimpse of Hope” is dense and questing, and resists any chance to move away from detail. Complete with intricate electronica and Bech’s falsetto, it has a bit of a feel of a Mew track shrunk down to microchip miniature; the effect is diverting with glimpses of something more.
[6]

Ramzi Awn: Heart is not what is missing from popular music today. Its own walls stumbling down, the authentic arrangement behind “Glimpse of Hope” offers an onslaught of conflicting emotions in its rousing refrain. In the end, the single sounds more contrived than anything else. 
[3]

Alfred Soto: This singer “explores the tensions between art and dance” but not between fussy lyrics and singing in any language. Lovely falsetto, though.
[3]

Hannah Jocelyn: For a period of time in 2012, I thought “Run Boy Run” was the coolest song ever; it was essentially Two Steps From Hell with vocals by a cisgender, less confrontational version of Anohni, an artist I had not discovered yet. This has a similar kind of grandeur to “Run Boy Run”, but I like that it’s more personal, not to mention weirder. The occasional clunkiness of the lyrics (“I’ve texted you but still there is no reply/I’ve walked around your block like nearly every night”) makes it only more endearing, especially when an actually intimate lyric like “I check if you are online” cuts through. As bombastic as this is, it’s not overproduced — rather than going for “hey look at my ginormous budget!,” it serves more to accentuate the emotion (yes, even the trap drums). This results in something that doesn’t necessarily try to be cool, but uses the same tools as Woodkid to tell a more emotional story, and succeeds.
[7]

We’re not even sure about “like,” tbh…

[Video][Website]
[5.12]

Alfred Soto: As bubbly as fresh cold prosecco, “Not in Love” benefits from M.O.’s sass. They’re not in love, but they sure act like it. The chintzy presets add to the spritz.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Reggae tinges à la tropical house or Sia-core tinged with Meghan Trainor-style Lesley Goreisms — the bit about mocking a boy for playing video games is a veer into cheese, and the melodies on the chorus are much more Brill Building than Studio One. The production’s great here, especially on those low bass squelches for the hook, but Kent Jones feels more or less like a “might as well” than a welcome addition.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: In this day and age M.O getting this far is a real achievement, but as it stands they’re unlikely to ever get beyond an uphill struggle. For a band in their position, something big and attention-grabbing could (and is maybe needed to) fully establish them. This song, while perfectly pleasant, is not that. Even the choice of guest suggests limitations — if Kent Jones is your Big American Feature, you haven’t got a Big American Feature — and without an indisputable hit, they’re unlikely to be exceeded. “Perfectly pleasant” doesn’t cut it unless people actually know who you are.
[6]

Katie Gill: This is a fun, infectious song that could have been so much better had they swapped out the lazy instrumentation for something else. M.O is trying their hardest to sell this: you can even detect fun in those vocals at certain points. But that instrumentation is dull. This deserves to be bright, more akin to the power behind something like Get Weird-era Little Mix, not an overplayed beach setting on a Casio keyboard.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Almost seems like it could fit into that glorious and endlessly useful lineage, from 10cc to Jennifer Paige to Megara, of songs whose vocalists endlessly proclaim how much they don’t love the person they are clearly in love with. Except M.O seem to instead have in mind dub Fifth Harmony: too smirking to be joyful, too recycled-Anti to be cutting.
[4]

Ramzi Awn: The “thanks for nothing” siren song is getting tired. Denouncing love is a delicate affair, and there’s a thin line between mocking and truly walking away. Don’t be sorry, and don’t be predictable either.   
[3]

Jessica Doyle: I play Stardew Valley for the story and Candy Crush Soda Saga when I want to zone out and Final Fantasy XV until I have trouble completing a minor quest and wonder if it’s me or there’s another update forthcoming, and Tomb Raider: Legend when I want Hot Explorer Wisecracking with Her Boy Toys, and the 193-UN-members-in-10-minutes quiz when my husband plays Perfect Dark: Zero to relax or Resident Evil 4 for the deliciously terrible dialogue or Half-Life 2 because it’s his GOAT. All this is to explain why, whatever charms this song is supposed to have behind the processing and the bland chorus and the HP (or is it Lenovo?) product placement, I don’t notice because I’m too busy thinking FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, NAME ONE SPECIFIC VIDEO GAME.
[2]

Will Adams: All roads in 2017 pop lead to sluggish half-time, but “Not in Love” keeps it uptempo and is all the better for it. It brightens the song and emphasizes that, like M.O’s claims to the contrary, things aren’t always so serious.
[7]

Do not use Vianney if you are Shawn Mendes or about to become Shawn Mendes. Ask your doctor if Vianney is right for you.

[Video][Website]
[3.50]

Will Adams: Oh God, the Shawn Mendes… it’s spreading.
[4]

Iain Mew: This comes very close to falling into a terrible Passenger-shaped hole, but the careful and sparing build in the arrangement at least gives a bit of life and variety that the pedestrian melody and vocal can’t reach.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Vianney delivers a pretty brutal ballad (its title translates as “I Am Leaving”) superbly, with more emotion in one verse than you get from the Yank acoustics-and-voice boy brigade (cf. Mayer, Mraz, et.al.) across entire albums. It’s pretty obvious to me why this recently hit #2 in France: people reacted to it. You might, too, regardless of your language proficiency.
[7]

Cédric Le Merrer: When he’s not on national TV defending police officers raping my fellow French citizens, Vianney makes shitty French variété. Thank god my aesthetics and politics agree on his case.
[0]

Cassy Gress: I looked up the lyrics before I heard this, and my brain by default read the opening lines like a rollicking limerick: “J’ai TROque mes CLIQUES et mes CLAQUES / conTRE des cloQUES et des FLAQUES.” Obviously I don’t speak French. The first two minutes of the song cycle repeatedly through i, VI and VII, with a verse and chorus that melodically sound very similar to each other. Someone thought that adding more instruments = emotion, so they added acoustic guitar, bass drum, backing singers, maracas, etc on each loop, until by the end it is rather loud but it’s still doing the exact same basic chord loop and melody.  Vianney’s vocal contribution is not much to write home about either, because just like mistaking instrumentation for intensity, he mistakes a shaky vibrato for tension. He also sings maybe seven notes in the whole song, spending most of his time safely in the B♭3-D4 range. I’m not sure my initial limerick guess was that far off.
[3]

Ryo Miyauchi: It all unfolds like a movie, Vianney says, and so does “Je m’en Vais.” You can feel where the beat of this love drama will go next from a mile away: give it a minute and the strings will come rising. And Vianney sings like an amateur actor expressing heartbreak. It’s only the idea of it, and it stinks of performance.
[3]

Australia’s Hottest 100 runner-up; no relation to Left…

[Video][Website]
[7.50]

Hannah Jocelyn: Around this time last year, I predicted to myself that Daughter’s messy, muddy Not To Disappear would become a future cult classic, even as it was relatively overlooked upon its release. It looks like I might be onto something after all – it’s possible to hear shades of Elena Tonra’s singing in Amy Shark’s vocals, even though she later transitions to sound more like a trip-hop Alanis Morrissette. Then the lyrics are just fantastic, with some great lines that get away with rhyming “arm” with “arm” because it works within the context of the song; she’s so wrapped up in this crush that she can’t even write coherently! I love how intimate it feels too — I still haven’t set on who specifically this reminds me of (Elena? Alanis? Mitski? “I’m With You”-era Avril?) but the personal nature of the song is probably why. This kind of deadpan delivery is usually for a breakup song, and this is literally about being in love and not much else. Absolutely lovely, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see my score go up over the next few months. 
[8]

Peter Ryan: “I adore you” strikes me as an especially grown-up and serious way to spell out your feelings for someone, like the person who’s saying it must have thought about it an awful lot. “Adore” is concerned with the workaday realities of adult crushes — more belly-full-of-rocks than butterflies — there’s the bit about being broke, but also the negotiation of that vast terrible expanse that contains both designations like “lover” as well as the need to compete for his attention. But with all the gutter-kicking and arm-rubbing and basketball courts and aimless walks to the edge of town, Amy Shark’s lyric is also loaded with an almost-teenage sense of drama, lending a dose of bliss to counter the creeping anxiety. That’s a tough balance to strike, but it’s crushpop gold, and it’s why the song connects.
[8]

Will Adams: Unlike so many feather-light crush songs, “Adore” is a weighty one. It’s not just the slightly swung, lumbering drums. It’s Amy Shark knowing her feelings are true but needing to validate them further. She gets drunk, she gets territorial, she gets dressed up (“I wanna be found by you” is the most brutal line here); there’s no sense that her love is unrequited, but there’s a sense that Shark realizes that this feeling might not come again if she passes it up, and she chooses to dive in no matter what.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Drum loop and sampled distorto-hook aside, “Adore” might have come from the pen of Angel Olsen, but, however, I can hear Sam Smith playing the Method actor reciting the lines about slugging anyone who touches her lover. Actually, I can’t. The well-named Shark has one up on him.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: I’m probably overrating this because it’s got one of the best middle eights I can remember in recent memory. I also love the echoey, sinister guitar chords in the verses, Amy Shark imbues the song with both vulnerability and menace and it’s incredibly effective.
[8]

Iain Mew: Every guitar chord comes with a slight squeak and stays just a bit too long, each one a lingering drunken glance or silent self-directed eyeroll of its own. Amy Shark sounds like she’s singing through gritted teeth even when not kicking stones. “Adore” is exquisitely painful, and the Halsey-like alt-pop production is light enough to make it go down a little easier without disguising the bitter rawness that makes it so potent.
[8]

No wonder Hoobastank had to try so hard to find one; look who had all the rest of them!

[Video][Website]
[5.29]

Crystal Leww: Lady Gaga is a genius who basically invented a whole era of music (RIP EDM-pop 1.0), but I cannot stand the narrative around Joanne. “Million Reasons” was the worst thing about her Super Bowl show because it’s boring and because it engages with and weirdly validates criticism of Lady Gaga that was never applicable to begin with. The criticism of Lady Gaga circa “romama gaga ooh lala” was that she made nonsensical pop music, and that lyricism was dead because somehow people believe The Beatles were on some deep shit or that Gaga’s genius wasn’t her whole damn aesthetic package from looks to those fat, nasty synths. So she applied a host of aesthetics to her music from Springsteen to Koons. Now, I guess we are onto her Chris Stapleton wave (no disrespect to cowriter Hillary Lindsey, who cowrote Actual Good Country Songs “Jesus Take the Wheel” and “Girl Crush”), which is perhaps the worst of them all. “Million Reasons” is pop lyricism wrapped up in country production packaging, and unlike the converse, it doesn’t quite work because country production packaging both requires and exposes clumsy lyricism. Lack of lyricism totally works for pop music, but it often does not for country music, especially for country ballads, and this comes across as wildly weak.
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Thomas Inskeep: I suspect people are reading this as Gaga’s country move because of the acoustic guitar/voice pairing and because of the Hillary Lindsey stamp on the songwriting (“Jesus Take the Wheel,” “Girl Crush,” and about 50 more country hits you know). But to my ears this isn’t so different from any other big Gaga ballad; the woman does love drama, and thank goodness for that. What’s interesting is that I can’t hear a bit of co-writer/co-producer Mark Ronson in here. That’s alright, though; Gaga can nearly do this in her sleep, but thanks to Lindsey’s input, this isn’t a rote exercise, but a triumphant plea. One of Joanne‘s highlights. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: Colleagues hear country in this showbiz ballad, which reminds me of the incident in my office last week when a student heard me playing Brantley Gilbert and wondered why I was listening to metal. “Million Reasons” is no different than “Speechless” or “You and I” or a million other ballads, perhaps not as good, except Gaga didn’t slather her trembling-rocking-chair vibrato over those. I’m not sure what “Million Reasons” is about, except its will to bigness.
[5]

Will Adams: Lady Gaga has always had these torch songs in her, but it took being surrounded by explosive, shiny pop to draw out their own bombastic qualities. Joanne is tempered beyond belief in the name of seriousness, making “Million Reasons” its least effective offering. It crescendos where it needs to, Gaga sustains notes where she needs to, and it’s all kind of pretty, but it lacks the endearing excess of her previous ballads.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: This didn’t click for me until the Super Bowl performance – I’m not sure what the process behind Joanne was, but whatever they did in that studio really obscured how well-crafted most of the songs are on that album. I hope time looks back kindly on the record, and if not, at least this will have its fans. I do like the Spektoresque “good one, good ones” at the end of each chorus, and the bridge is beautiful. “Tell me that you’ll be the good one” I don’t get – it doesn’t really make sense unless the worn-out leather is referring to her emotional state from being hurt so many times before. Nonetheless, this is just a really good song – not overthought, not fussy, just a showcase for Stefani Joanne’s talents to show through.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Stef… Girl… wyd? Like, let’s think about this. You’re a performing arts school girl from Manhattan, Italian heritage. You are far removed from country as signifiers for authenticity no matter how hard you might try, and even if the ‘authenticity’ of others like Taylor Swift are dubious, they’ve been established and fostered long before anyone could make a judgement. I know you’ve already exhausted Springsteenism. The rumors that you might dally with influence from rap were always worrisome, and I’m glad we never saw that error make the light of day. But is this truly the right choice? A straight pop ballad version of “Million Reasons” in the Elton John/Beatles style like you’ve done before with “Speechless” would have been acceptable, and I get that after as maligned as ARTPOP was you want to seem more down to earth. But uh, is this really the way? Because nothing sounds as “HELLO FELLOW HUMANS” as you attempting country I’m afraid.
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Katie Gill: You could write a book about the authenticity politics of Joanne and how Lady Gaga seems to be using country music stylings to push this promotion of her “real self”, despite the fact that she’s using explicitly performative stylings to explore this concept of the real in the first place. But I’m still coming off of a killer sinus infection and am a little bit hopped up on cough syrup so I’ll leave that to somebody else! For all the focus on Lady Gaga as a spectacle, there’s not that much focus on Lady Gaga as a performer. It’s telling that her Super Bowl set included plenty of high-energy numbers but just one slow ballad: “Million Reasons.” This certainly isn’t the best Gaga ballad (my money for that still goes to “Til It Happens To You”) but if Gaga wanted to remind the world on a national stage “hey, I can still do slow ballads”, I can see why she picked this one. It’s a beautiful composition that her voice does wonders with, pulling emotion out of almost every note.
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I hope that name’s better than “The Shins”, right?

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[3.57]

Katherine St Asaph: They’ve also got a name for these guys.
[3]

Katie Gill: In an NPR interview, frontman James Mercer says that he hopes “Name for You” is a hopeful ode of empowerment to his daughters. Truth be told, I’d rather my hopeful odes of empowerment not come from male singers mansplaining (mansinging?) at me to be empowered in the first place.
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Alfred Soto: If the New Pornographers’ Carl Newman excels at stringing hortatory phrases that are on first listen meaningless in toto, The Shins at worst specialize in what James Mercer correctly calls a “bland kind of torture.” I can’t deny his melodic gifts, and the creamer his productions get, the more I like’em. But don’t essay Of Montreal — his voice collapses like a muffler on the turnpike.
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Cédric Le Merrer: Is your mind able to go through the mental gymnastics required to remember the context in which this kind of shit was cool? I can’t.
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Ryo Miyauchi: A middle-age anthem from a middle-age band, “Name for You” has James Mercer admitting the jig is up: their days of saving lives is basically over. Such a mode seems overdue from him, but it turns out The Shins sound better when they refuse to admit their time is done. While it sounds huge, this one gets the job done without much ambition, a thing Port of Morrow had in abundance despite the band nearing their expiration date.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: I expected generic indie, but what I got wasn’t even that good. This is like, indie for boring people who think that listening to this somehow makes them “edgy.” 
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Rachel Bowles: More of an earworm than a heartworm, The Shins deliver pretty much what I would expect from them- lyrics that perhaps cut too deeply juxtaposed by a cheerful presentation, Mercer’s pleasant tones, particularly falsetto, to an upbeat indie disco track. Does that count as irony anymore? Femme listeners know what someone is probably about to call us after observing “they’ve got a name for you girls,” and I’d like to answer that and any hangovers of Natalie Portman in Garden State with this.
[5]