Maybe the thirsty girls just wanted a soda?

[Video][Website]
[4.86]

Iain Mew: Alt-J have not just gone back to prog, but gone further into it than before through reaching right back to The Moody Blues‘ symphonic pastoral. Only they’ve added fifty years’ worth of haunted decay to that particlar English vision. Maybe it’s because I grew up on the originals, but it really works on me. The disjointed structure and extended intro adds to the powerful sense of glimpses being grabbed before disappearing forever, facts about rates of erosion given emotional weight. The group’s lyrical mixture of strolling bard and cynical modernity works much better than usual, not least because it’s contested in song by a contrasting voice. So the highlight is Ellie Rowsell popping in from the pool to say hi and interrupt all the wayward lad and sky-as-awning stuff, puncturing its illusion but immediately claiming her right to its seriousness too.
[9]

Claire Biddles: I think this song is about sex but it’s certainly not the kind of sex I like. Whereas a group like Wild Beasts tease the earthiness and sensuality out of muddy, pastoral settings, Alt-J’s descriptions of sex are conservative and intellectual where they should be evocative. There’s the potential for some great characters drawn in the lyrics, including “two thirsty girls from Hornsea”, but they fall flat, and I wish they were allowed to come alive in a more gutsy atmosphere. The guest vocals from Ellie Roswell (uncredited! Come on!) don’t quite work for the same reasons — I love her in Wolf Alice because of the tension between her whispers and screeches, but this traps her in an enforced politeness.
[3]

Josh Langhoff: A young boy’s strange, erotic journey from home to Hornsea. Like most wayward lads, he thinks his journey sounds like “The End,” but can’t get on board with the whole Jim-Morrison-shagging-his-mum bit.
[4]

Katie Gill: Glad to see this video is still mostly on point. Just swap the repeated layered vocals for a repeated layered guitar and congrats, it’s this Alt-J song.
[4]

William John: Shapeless, meandering and relentlessly dispassionate; or, alternatively, the embodiment of Katy Perry’s inebriated zombie introduced to us nearly two months ago.
[2]

Ryo Miyauchi: Alt-J comb out the last bit of stray hairs and then some. The baldness may make the aimlessness of “3WW” more bare, but at least no noise interferes with the richly pastoral guitars. The more they tease out their tendrils, the more this band becomes tolerable for me.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: This doesn’t really pick up until around two and a half minutes in, with a burst of strings and saturation. but it does build from there. Their last album This Is All Yours was too meandering and weedy to be fully enjoyable, but “3WW” feels much more thought-through, with more organic instrumentation and even coherent-ish lyricism. The fussiness is what made An Awesome Wave as successful as it was, and it’s great to see that attention to detail make a return, as well as hearing Elie Roswell make a cameo. It still sounds like Alt-J, but they are actually stretching themselves a bit here, rather than just doing that YouTube clip over and over again. The follow-up single is more in line with their usual style, but stranger and heavier, but the “stranger” part suits them – with both tracks released thus far, Alt-J sound chilled-out with purpose.
[7]

Juana (no, the other Juana) makes her Jukebox debut…

[Video][Website]
[6.83]

Juana Giaimo: If there is something that I learnt about Juana Molina’s music throughout the years, it’s that her discography is a cadence. One album merges into the next one just like her loops: it’s a repetition of the same patterns, but there are changes, a development and different textures. So this is how I receive “Cosoco” — it continues Juana Molina’s discography in a perfect harmony, incorporating naturally to her previous work. In it, I hear the quick dynamics of Wed21, but also that tenderness in her voice of Tres cosas, while the song structures gets distorted as in Un día. And above all, I hear Juana. 
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: There’s a lot going on — an acoustic riff, rhythmic elements, vocals, some treated keyboards — but I’m not sure any of it really melds. Molina clearly likes using loops, which I appreciate; I just wish there was more songcraft here. 
[4]

Alfred Soto: As the bass thumps with more aggression and the tempos increase, “Cosoco” approaches the everything-in-the-wrong-place triumph of Radiohead’s “The National Anthem,” with Juana Molina’s coo underscoring the creeps. Finally — chillwave with a pulse.
[7]

Peter Ryan: Molina has such a tightly-focused and thoroughly individual sonic palette that it takes a devoted critic to competently pull out the nuances in her work. The best I can say is that she seems a bit lighter, catchier, more propulsive here, but it’s as delightfully unnerving a listen as ever.
[8]

Iain Mew: A song wound restrictively tight, it’s worth it; when Molina finally has it unravel, it whizzes past in a panoramic blur.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: A strumming jagged like knives and a riff forever chasing its own tail: this is classic Juana Molina. And as with Molina’s other work, the fun is in the post-production: synth waves squeal like she’s furiously turning the radio dial to unlock a secret signal, and my, that processing running through her voice. Details emerge subtly to the touch, but such small ticks are what keeps her creations curiously new.
[6]

Whenever you’re near, I hear a symphonyyy…

[Video][Website]
[5.88]

Claire Biddles: Aiming for the simple rhapsody of their masterpiece “Rather Be,” “Symphony” is a thing of joy that leaves both Clean Bandit’s electronic and classical elements room to breathe. The central love-as-music metaphor has been done a thousand times before of course — most notably in Kelis’ ode to motherhood “Acapella” — but it feels appropriate for Clean Bandit, so much so that I’m surprised they haven’t used it before. There’s always been a tongue-in-cheek knowing to their use of classical themes, and the extension to meta lyrics suits them. It’s especially cute when (exceptionally well chosen) guest singer Zara Larsson’s confession that “I was solo singing on my own / now I can’t find the key without you” acts as a cue for the strings to swell behind her. I was an unabashed fan of weirdo number one hit “Rockabye,” but it’s equally as delightful to hear something uncomplicated and effervescent from Clean Bandit.
[8]

Rebecca A. Gowns: It’s a pet peeve of mine when pop songs refer to more complex musical forms in an offhand way, like it all means the same thing. A song is not equal to a melody, which is not equal to a symphony or an orchestra or anything else like that. (My father is a music professor and he passed this pedantry on to me.) It would also be less of a jarring comparison if the song sounded more full, orchestral, had four movements, whatever — as it is, it’s tissue-paper-thin. BUT if I don’t pay attention to the words — which is hard, since the arrangement is so scant that you can hear every word as if it was written in bold — I can still enjoy the ephemeral little bip-bop music that Clean Bandit is so good at putting together.
[6]

Will Adams: I’m always amused by songs that use extended music metaphors because I start thinking of how to take them even further (“You’re my perfect authentic cadence”; “Before you my chord was unresolved”; “Life was flat but you sharpened everything”). As it stands, “Symphony” is both “Acapella”-lite and “Rather Be”-lite, failing to recapture either song’s effusive devotion and opting for inoffensive prettiness.
[6]

Hannah Jocelyn: All of Clean Bandit’s songs sound the same, to the point where I was convinced I had an older song of theirs on at the beginning. Nonetheless, there’s nothing wrong with that, because their sound almost always works well. Zara’s still trying to find her identity, but she’s a surprisingly good match, even as her heavier voice would theoretically be a contrast to Clean Bandit’s peppy music.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: I like this when the melodies start to sound like something Nina Persson would sing. So only for about 10% its runlength.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Formula turns formulaic, on both parts.
[3]

Peter Ryan: The soft bits don’t signify restraint so much as provide contrast for the eruption of a chorus, by now Clean Bandit’s stock-and-trade. I wonder how long they’ve been sitting on the song title, but at least they saved it for their very biggest, corniest single to date. It also makes the best case yet for their project’s existence. For once nearly every exuberant sonic trinket locks into place — only the second half-time feels awkward — and for all the grandiosity there’s a bracingly intimate core, such that Larsson’s overtures don’t feel the least bit glib. It’s the sound of their vision coming together.
[8]

William John: The introductory twinkles allude to the understated grace of Alicia Keys’ overlooked “In Common“; the reality is, as the song’s title suggests, far more grandiose. The principal issue here is that the central metaphor is confused. Following up a brazen declaration of “Symphony!” with the words “like a love song on the radio” seems peculiarly incongruent. More to the point, a symphony is work of many movements and components, which doesn’t align with the conceit of two lovers destined to be together forever. Then again, a cry of something like “Duet!” wouldn’t carry half the required bombast, and Zara Larsson has the kind of malleable, amenable voice to make even the mundane or muddled sound exuberantly sublime.
[7]

Reggaeton by way of Spain…

[Video][Website]
[4.33]

Claire Biddles: Enrique Iglesias has always been a reliable sort of popstar, churning same-y but good hits out at an impressive rate, and he seems to be getting even more settled into his comfort zone as he continues to focus on Spanish language music. Not that that’s a bad thing — this kind of celebratory reggaeton is consistently fun if not particularly discernible. 
[6]

Jessica Doyle: In a faster-paced or more key-change-laden song, the lack of vocal breaks would be a weakness, but here it’s a strength, giving everyone (particularly Lennox) time to have fun. The song circles around the same melody several times rather than progressing from Point A to Point B, but I definitely wouldn’t call it static; dancing in place can be lots of fun too.
[7]

Iain Mew: I had this playlisted after Sebastián Yatra’s “Alguien Robó” and the end flows into this with frightening smoothness. “Subeme La Radio” is in inferior on all counts though, between Enrique’s strain, the dull contributions of the others, and the limp unchanging backing.
[2]

Will Adams: You’d think they were trying to summon B.o.B. with that opening guitar line. Nope, it’s just Enrique and his nostrils left to fend for themselves against a monotonous backing and guests who barely put forth an effort.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Some artists will do what’s necessary to remain overnight sensations or an “Overnight Sensation,” even shout banalities over reggaeton presets.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: I don’t know why Enrique’s Spanish-language records are so superior to his English-language ones, but they are, and “Subeme La Radio” is no exception. Here he bends reggaeton to his will, smoothing it out and molding it into rhythmic pop. Descemer Bueno and Zion & Lennox ably assist on the rhymes. 
[6]

Somewhat dreamy Colomobian reggaeton dreamboat alert!

[Video][Website]
[5.67]

Juana Giaimo: The reason why “Traicionera” worked was because each line was almost flawlessly chained to the next one by Sebastián Yatra’s self-pitying cadence. But sharing the main role with two stablished reggaeton artists as on this new track means it doesn’t have the appealing egocentrism of his previous hit. None of the three are truly engaging — Wisin will just never change that agressive rapping, Nacho’s nasal voice is too sentimental for reggaeton, and Sebastián Yatra’s warmer tone is lost in this upbeat and traditionally instrumented song. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: I’d believe this Colombian singer’s plaint if he didn’t outsource the rue to these raps.
[4]

Iain Mew: Wisin & Nacho both grab hold of the song with such delightful energy that it leaves Sebastián Yatra sounding like a harmless holding pattern between their contributions. The accordion at least takes the side of partying straight to the point.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Oh, dreamy Sebastián Yatra, lay your moody man feelings on me! Lay your moody kind of boring man feelings on me, but give me a break in between them. Nacho is a rare voice which can  pierce and overpower the sound of accordions with his presence. I sometimes find reggaeton songs to much of a muchness but this one’s got energy and variety a bit of charm.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: Who knows if they all have the right to play victim? While Wisin is the most questionable one out of the bunch, Sebastián Yatra sings his case to me with that whimpering voice of his. More sad-boy reggaeton from him, please.
[6]

Lilly Gray: The real star of this is Nacho (“La Criatura,” perfect gremilin moniker, perfect fright night delivery)  and his rap that manages to rhyme “mañana” and “pyjama.” It’s a fun lift to an otherwise moaning orgy of manful angst, and the cute bits (such as those pyjamas) remain solidly in the key of Hallmark sap. We’re in mournful gazing at the night sky territory here, with soaring drama-king lines like “it’s impossible to forget you” and the slightly fussy chorus accusing this stolen woman of being the reason “I don’t believe in love anymore.” (La Criatura!)
[6]

Norwegish production duo fail to match their glory days producing S Club 7.

[Video][Website]
[3.50]

Katherine St Asaph: Heh. A waterfall.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s all a bit of an illusion really, isn’t it. It’s over 15 years since Stargate’s last ill-fated attempt at becoming a chart-act-cum-brand of their own was caught in a weird collision of music industry overspending, the dot-com bubble and music industry collapse, but now that their collaborators are not limited to Billie Piper and Richard Blackwood they can gloss over that, Sam Smith-style. The overambitious follies of 2001 would be preferable to this though. It’s hard to imagine such a leaden and self-serious song inspiring much discussion in the Stargate “chill-out area with message boards and possibly web chats with the team”. Bring back Samantha Mumba (again).
[5]

Katie Gill: Stargate is a production team that excels at making songs sound different. This isn’t a Max Martin or Jack Antonoff situation where you hear a song and go “ah yes, I know that songwriter.” Stargate’s written/produced songs as varied as “Firework,” “Adventure of a Lifetime,” and “S Club Party.” So it downright CONFUSES me why they’d release a mediocre song that sounds like a This Is Acting reject for their big attempt to be a recognizable production team. Surely if you want to make a public name for yourselves you wouldn’t do it in a way that sounds like somebody else?
[4]

Alfred Soto: The singers’ overstatement smothers the feather-light electronic skank. Without the credits I would’ve guessed Zedd produced it.
[3]

Hannah Jocelyn: It’s easy to predict that a line like “I’m in your waterfall” would appear a Sia song titled “Waterfall” (I saw at least one person on social media say that as soon as it was announced), but no one could have predicted the metaphor would stretch to “I paddle, but you’re too stroh-ohng/But I gotta trust your flow.” That said, I’m always happy to hear Pink belting on a song, even if it’s as predictable as this one. 
[5]

William John: Colour me baffled that an act with a resumé as extensive as Stargate would choose this comatose dirge as a single with a leading byline. Sia’s vocal affectations are shopworn; Pink attempts, poorly, to imitate her, and none of the five writers involved bothered to figure out a variation to the one prosaic line repeated over and over as a chorus proxy. Pop by focus group regularly yields brilliance, but here the result is uninspiring and trite, and the apathy from all its players is palpable.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: Pink does Sia better than Sia, which is to say she’s belting and emoting for her life. That’s OK, but Sia does Sia louder and more stridently than Pink could ever dream of, and this song is a trifle that has about as much inherent emotion to fill a thimble.
[3]

Will Adams: “I’m in your waterfall,” they sing, making me wonder if people are still climbing in barrels and launching themselves off Niagra. This is now the second time P!nk sounds like she had twenty minutes to learn her lyrics, making me wonder if it’s her fault or quick soundtrack turnarounds. Or it could be Stargate’s lumbering stab at 2017 pop — that they’ve bothered to step into lead artist territory makes about as much sense as if Max Martin did the same. Or it could just be Sia, whose metaphor-a-minute approach to songwriting is even starting to enervate her singers.
[3]

From this glowing late-career review: “Her biographer José Louzeiro has declared her contributions to Brazil’s folk music analogous to Bessie Smith’s and Ella Fitzgerald’s to the blues.”

[Video][Website]
[7.50]

Hannah Jocelyn: Goth-rock-jazz-samba led by a 79-year-old female Tom Waits is not an easy sell, and neither are those gargly, throaty, gravelly “la la la las” at the end of the song. The title translates to “woman at the end of the world,” and that is precisely what Elza Soares sounds like, as a backing band formed with Brazilian members of afrobeat and post-punk bands creates something that sounds post-apocalyptic yet full of grandeur. Reading Soares’ life story is not necessary to enjoy this, but it adds to how resilient and fired-up the song sounds. The way she draws out “cantaaaar” becomes even more defiant — that it doesn’t matter what’s happened to her, or what mythic stories are told about her, she’s going to keep singing until she’s the last one standing.
[8]

Claire Biddles: Perhaps because I can’t claim to have any knowledge about Brazilian music, the two reference points that immediately spring to mind when hearing “Mulher do Fim do Mundoare” are North American — the late-in-the-day sonic experiments of Scott Walker, and the sharp storytelling and learned vocals of Leonard Cohen. Like Cohen and Walker, Soares makes the kind of music that few get the chance to because it is born of so much lived experience, of which she has had more than most. With her gargled, unselfconscious vocals, she becomes her own symbol.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Evocative of full-on postpunk Diamanda Galás, and if that’s high praise it’s not disproportionately high.
[7]

Will Adams: The almost-a-descending tetrachord that opens the song is no accident; Soares stands as a woman filled with rich life experience, appreciating it while reconciling mortality. Engaging as it is, it’s challenging stuff — the simple chromatics from the first minute unravel into almost never resolving harmonies, and the end is a chilling, if a bit unsatisfying, ebb into silence.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: The dizzying guitars slowly spin a complex web that gives way to a climactic unraveling. But the minutes spent building tension have nothing on the decades of experience behind Soares. She pours every bit of those years into the song’s breakdown.
[7]

David Sheffieck: The production is masterful, a tensely unspooling journey that mutates and evolves over the course of the song. It has to be, in order to keep up with Soares: she croons and snarls, wails and rasps, and stuns. She’s a singular and utterly fascinating presence, the emotion she portrays undeniable.
[9]

Claire with the buried lead…

[Video][Website]
[4.17]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: You can sum up the entirety of Juanes’ catalog as rock versions of traditional Colombian musical ideas; it’s pretty much his thing, but recent Juanes hasn’t sounded very engaging, or even fun, in a while. “Hermosa Ingrata” doesn’t even have the time or the energy for a guitar solo (!) and that drumbeat takes a lot from the cumbia cadence. Plus, those lyrics again? I know it’s kind of a Colombian tradition to write songs about deceptive women, but come on, he’s done way too many of those.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Great prowling bassline, not-so-great whingey song on top of it.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Typical midtempo reggaeton twaddle about beautiful ingrates and the stupid men who write songs about them.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: A light cumbia with some inspired touches like wah-wah guitar licks works for me. 
[6]

Iain Mew: The wah-wah is a bit to get over, but I thought at first that “Hermosa Ingrata” at least has a decent swinging groove going for it. They can’t even manage to keep that up, though, opting for additions like the half-spoken bit which break up its progress but are too hesitant for that to be more than a disappointment.
[3]

Claire Biddles: I am 100% on board for Juanes’ visual album about a time-travelling Colombian astronaut looking for love (!), but maybe I’ll watch it with the sound down if this is anything to go by.
[3]

My song title would be Andrew Eldritch Once Sang On A Sarah Brightman Record, which is why I don’t write songs…

[Video][Website]
[6.50]

Alfred Soto: Populating his songs with real personages that register as themselves as much as they do as stalking horses, John Darnielle uses the Sisters of Mercy bullfrog as an example of what Darnielle hopes to become and probably is already: a survivor, not in the showbiz sense but a person of subcult visibility who can return to his hometown without requiring a pine box. The vibes, keyboard, and especially the string section swath the track in amiability; Eldritch is happy to be back. How uncommon for a Mountain Goats song to eschew ambiguity.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: I love that this lead single from Goths, ostensibly about the lead singer of Sisters of Mercy (but really about so many people, famous and not), sounds so synth-plinky and pretty — there are even woodwinds! I also love that John Darnielle’s voice sounds so light and wimpy (I mean that as a compliment). This is what I wish Magnetic Fields sounded like, with clever-clever lyrics to match.
[7]

Hannah Jocelyn: “Andrew Eldritch is Moving Back to Leeds” is such a Mountain Goats song title, and “a rusted fog machine in a concrete storage space” is such a Darnielle lyric; nonetheless, his warm style ensures that he never diverges into self-parody. Even his sillier moments have depth and fatalism, and even his darker moments have gallows humor. Repeating himself just feels endearing, because it sounds like talking to a friend you’ve known for so long that he’s probably told you the same story three or four times. The one problem with this song, though, is the guitar-less production. One reason why Beat the Champ and Transcendental Youth were so successful was how well the instrumentation served the vocals, and they don’t quite mesh here. The twirling woodwinds are gorgeous, but the song would be better served if there was more energy, and maybe if it was a bit shorter as well.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Objectively excellent craft like most Mountain Goats tracks, yet I waver between “way too pretty” and “way too much projection” and “[un-critical personal associations]” and “I pledged John K. Samson instead.”
[6]

Tim de Reuse: Many good Mountain Goats songs are 90% mundanity anchored by one or two lines of perfectly-honed, broad-picture context — and, of course, obligatory name-dropping of some mid-prominence population center. We aren’t let down here: the former in the gorgeously ominous “everybody tests the membrane / but no one pushes through,” and the latter in, well, Leeds. It’s not all retracing of steps, though. The Mountain Goats have shifted instrumentation styles ever since they decided to have instruments at all beyond a six-string and a growling tape recorder, but they’ve never settled on a specific formula, which I guess I can respect. John Darnielle made some waves by announcing that this album would be free of guitars, and the bouncing bassline, the plucky woodwind arrangements and the mechanical snare on the two and the four are chipper in an antiseptic dentist’s-waiting-room sense. Darnielle is too Darnielle-y to ever not sound like The Mountain Goats, but this particular result is odd.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: This is great because it sounds as crusty and lame as Sisters of Mercy actually is, no matter how hard your local new wave elder argues otherwise. John Darnielle is not the dude who drank himself to death who used to tell me how Eric Clapton killed his own kid for a Grammy, nor is he the woman who’d read Tarot cards and sneeringly ask if I still liked “Twenty-Five Cent,” and thank goodness he isn’t those kinds of corny. But the eternal reach for earnestness and will to good reminds me of those old goths I took so much shit from. I don’t think people really like the songs of The Mountain Goats, though I could be as snide and cynical as those whom I’ve left behind. I think what people get out of him is a man who tries to make as many songs that ennoble the peculiar as possible. I’ll ultimately never love this music, but I don’t know a musician anywhere with such a relentless drive that doesn’t try to challenge or ensnare or overwhelm but do good onto its listener.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: I love how the woodwinds swell like it’s a wistful, fond homecoming, but the rest of the song paints it as mundane, even defeated, focusing on details of decay and progress masking decay. I’ve had a rough 12 months and thought about going back to my hometown; this song speaks to the universal truth that there’s glory in being a survivor long enough to go home, but there’s no triumph or glamour in it.
[7]

Claire Biddles: Nostalgia is different for adopted places because it’s where you chose to be, not where you’re forced to be. Until I heard this song I had no idea that Andrew Eldritch ever lived in Leeds, which I suppose would be unremarkable for most people. But Leeds was my first aspirational place — I’m from Wakefield, the next city over, so it had a tangible glamour. It wasn’t London, or even Manchester, but bands came from there, and it had a bigger Topshop, and people I could make friends with who didn’t go to my school. My view of the world widened eventually and I moved away when I was 19, but lots of people didn’t, or moved and came back. “Everybody tests the membrane but no one pushes through.” One of my best friends just bought a house in the suburbs. When we meet up, we talk a little bit about where we used to go out drinking and dancing and watching bands, about The Cockpit where we saw Sleater-Kinney and LCD Soundsystem and countless other less cool bands when we were teenagers (it’s since closed down, boarded up and unused for a couple of years now). There’s nostalgia, of course, but mostly we just talk about how we live now. That cliché of slipping back into the conversation, life going on, people leaving then coming back then leaving again. The constant of your first chosen home, that was also the chosen home of your friends, that you made together and can come back to. Bringing the stories and the personality traits and the belongings you’ve found in the world back to the place that will always be there, like Andrew Eldritch returning with his army backpack. Collecting meaning like dust. 
[7]

That feeling when you learn that the Power Rangers reboot is going to be dark and gritty…

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Thomas Inskeep: I like the lightly skanking rhythm of this, and Becky G’s light touch with her vocals. Also, she was really good in Power Rangers, in case you were wondering.
[6]

Katie Gill: Becky G has a feature film out. She’s Trini, the yellow Power Ranger in the new Power Rangers film. You’d expect somebody to hop on that and do some cross promotion — maybe get Becky G to sing the song in the credits or make this song have a Power Rangers themed video. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting a slightly generic Latin pop number to be the song released. That spoken word bit is embarrassing as all heck, but aside from that, this is decent background noise, perfect for playing in the soundtrack of stores or lingering on when you’re in the car and there’s nothing else to listen to. It’s not bad, it’s just all right.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Everything changed when Becky imitated Britney imitating Ariana Grande. I gripped the guitar at 2:50 for dear life.
[5]

Rachel Bowles: There’s nothing Becky G does better than the ecstasy of falling in love to some highly danceable pop. The spoken word Spanish over latinesque EDM beats and baseline is particularly refreshing and hipnotising (Sorry!).
[8]

David Sheffieck: Becky G had the (mis)fortune of breaking through with “Shower”, one of those songs so perfect you could spend a career trying to equal it. Her immediate followup was an enjoyable-if-forgettable copy, but the next two found Dr. Luke flailing to find something else that could hit. A pivot to Spanish-language songs could seem desperate, if it didn’t result in the best work Gomez has managed since her first hit. Here, she’s stronger singing than when rapping (but solid enough at the latter) and charismatic enough to hold her own against a beat she’s often mixed too low against. This might be an unexpected rebirth, but it’d be a deserved one.
[7]

Will Adams: After the evident growing pains of her career — bouncing around from pop-rap to full singing pop to Latin pop — it’s nice to hear Becky G coming into her own. Her Spanish language singles have been consistent, energized takes on reggaeton, and “Todo Cambio” follows suit. The bass zooms wildly in spots, the clattering strings in the chorus manage to avoid crowding the track, and Becky even gets a chance to flaunt her rap skills. Still being with Kemosabe in the midst of all its extra-musical baggage must be a drag, but Becky G seems to be making the most of it.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Though Becky G has released Latin singles for a while, she likely went full time for two reasons, though it’s impossible to say how much of each: musical affinity, but also the fact that Dr. Luke has virtually zero presence on pop radio anymore. It’s equally hard to say how much of that is due to the obvious reason and how much is simply Luke having misjudged how early to go solo, but the fact remains and looms. Latin pop is a lucrative, standalone market, but it’s hard not to see Luke’s engagement with it as cynical scrambling, as with urban radio in 2015, for any place that’ll take him. If all of this sounds unfair to Becky G, that’s because it is — she’s not the only derailed Kemosabe artist, but no amount of vibrancy or curls in her voice would keep “Todo Cambio” and such from being hard to listen to.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: Of the three reggaeton singles Becky G has released, this may be the weakest for being the most generic. She keeps the strong attitude of “Sola” and “Mangú” by rapping the verses with a certain mysterious attitude — but at the same time, she aims to be romantic but is rather corny.
[5]