His life USED to be brilliant, anyway.

[Video]
[3.25]

Julian Axelrod: Seeing Robin Schulz and James Blunt on a song together feels like finding out two random people from your high school are dating. You stumble upon a pic of them together on Facebook and think, “How do they know each other? Weren’t they, like, three years apart?” But you want to give them the benefit of the doubt, so you look through the pictures and videos they’ve posted. And you think, “Why do they both look so awkward and uncomfortable? Is someone holding them at gunpoint and forcing them to stage hiking pics? Who would do that to them?” And you haven’t thought about either of these people in years, but now you’re looking through their profiles and details about them slowly come back to you — what they used to look like, who they used to date, a conversation you had at a party. You think, “Wow, that guy looks completely different now. What happened?” And before you know it, you’ve spent half an hour thinking about these people who you don’t even care about. They seem happy together, so who am I to judge?
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: Robin Schulz has this strange desire to be the Calvin Harris of the Lite.FM crowd. All of his attempts at dancepop are barely danceable, instead feeling like a dude who specializes in making industry remixes of acoustic guitar sadsack music. Hell, if he revealed he was a generic musician and did an all-acoustic album of his hits to this point, would anyone truly notice the difference? Here with James Blunt piping along sycophantically, he goes 0-2 in trying to uplift and just managing to go through the motions; he sounds what those hunger-blocker pills feel like.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: Oh, my fucking god. Not only has Schulz decided to up the tempo to “turbo,” he’s brought in the horrendous Blunt, responsible for one of the worst songs of the century, to spew his hideously shrill vocals all over the proceedings, singing a bunch of vapid lyrics. One of the worst singles you’ll hear this year.
[0]

Cassy Gress: James Blunt starts out this hands to the sky stomp sounding overly compressed and with a shivery, sped-up-sounding vibrato, but by the time we get to the chorus, that vocal tremor actually works for melodramatic lines about every last heart in the world breaking. Still think this could be a few bpm slower though; it’d lose some of the frenetic edge, but there’d be more confidence in the title word.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: The King of the Balearics dips his toe back in the waters of “1973” and is probably surprised when Schulz brings out his funny noises. They fit satisfactorily though, and this is in essence a “Waves”wave remix of a James Blunt song, which is exactly what “High”, “Wisemen” and the plausible Schulz inspiration “1973” itself have been long calling out for. The lesson to be learnt from this is that Schulz and Blunt should get on to a remix album now, quicksmart.
[6]

Alex Clifton: Further proof that 2017 is the Darkest Timeline: James Blunt returns with an EDM club-banger that nobody asked for. It could be worse, I guess–Autotune, a superfluous verse by Pitbull, unintelligible chipmunked vocals–but that doesn’t mean this is good, either. 
[3]

Katie Gill: I don’t know if James Blunt is actively TRYING to stage a Mike Posner style comeback as he tries to move from his 2000s drippy pop image to something more house and EDM but it sure feels like it. Problem here is, the Seeb remix of “I Took a Pill in Ibiza” was actually GOOD. This feels like a middle of the road attempt at a club banger that would have been a hit a few years back but now just sounds sadly stale.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I’ll be fucked if any sparrow-voiced strummer thinks he can gank Mike Posner, and no one, not even Reince Priebus, has a right to say “it’s gonna be OK” in 2017.
[1]

But did the candle smell like Troye?

[Video]
[5.00]

Claire Biddles: I’m a fully committed Sivan stan (I once bought a £30 Troye-branded scented candle from his merch stand when I went to see him play live) so the prospect of his first new material since 2015 left me trembling with excitement. Unfortunately “There for You” is sadpop-by-numbers, clichéd both musically (pitched up vocal sample chorus) and lyrically (“love is a road that goes both ways”). The strength of the singles from his debut Blue Neighbourhood came from the combination of his (explicitly queer) suburban teen drama lyrics, and the lush and imaginative soundscapes of writer/producer Alex Hope, neither of which are present here. On a song like that album’s “Fools”, Troye met the high bar of the music, but here Martin Garrix doesn’t give him nearly enough: In the context of a dance guest vocal, his voice is relegated from subtle to boring.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: Troye Sivan throws out that he woke up pissed off this morning like a loose tweet, and hearing the passiveness he puts forth on this, his supposed frustration has the lifespan of one too. It’s easy to blame Martin Garrix and co. for that with their overtly clean production scrubbing away any hint of anxiety. But Sivan could’ve also shared me with at least one reason other than him having to catch drags on the balcony to convince me why I got to pick up his call to hear him out.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Sivan’s voice is warm and inviting, a good match for the lyrics he’s singing, and Garrix has constructed a good bed for them, not at all typical EDM-pop but almost (I stress almost) soulful. The chorus does the rote DJ drop thing, unfortunately — you gotta WHOOSH up the crowd, I suppose — but apart from that, this stands fairly strongly.
[6]

Alfred Soto: “You’ve Got a Friend” for the EDM crowd, with a hint of sex, and if Troye Sivan’s dark-hued tones weren’t there for me, this song wouldn’t be. 
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Welcome incremental gain of addressing a “boy” aside, shouldn’t have been so keen to give up your youth.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: Something about Troye’s voice is instantly familiar, which is why Blue Neighborhood worked as well as it did; however, here the familiar and soothing tone of his voice is both an asset and a hindrance. Many electronic songs aim to be cathartic, hoping to help release any sadness or pain through their melancholic beats, crescendo and all. The lyrics are often nothing to write home about, usually a combination of words referencing loneliness and sadness, and that is no different here. What is different is that Troye’s voice gives the admittedly-pedestrian lyrics a bit more oomph, but while that may work for the chorus, the silk in his voice is counterproductive when the beat is about to drop. It just doesn’t fit. Even the final crescendo feels weird, not bad, necessarily, but definitely not what is expected and, really, needed in a song like this. Any emotion the song manages to muster up with its verses is quickly lost in the chorus, but at the end of the day the song manages to hit me right in the feels at some point, so I guess mission accomplished?
[6]

It’s “European EDM DJs Featuring Other People” Friday! 10 points to whoever can come up with a snappier title.

[Video]
[4.00]Hannah Jocelyn: It’s hard to hear Ellie warble about cigarettes after hearing the deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction of party music on Melodrama. It’s even harder considering the great music that Ellie’s capable of making. Ellie’s too good of a singer to go through the motions with Kygo like this. “It Ain’t Me” worked because of how it used its emotional-trop-pop trappings to its advantage, but this is weightless in a bad way. Those lines about debauchery sound like every writer involved is following a straight edge lifestyle. The melody, nostalgic references, and drum kits sound rejected from Memories… Do Not Open, even if the production is much better. “First Time” is just so hard to hear that it’s difficult to pay attention for a full single listen — normally I use comparisons to make a point about how it does or doesn’t transcend the names dropped, but I’m pulling them up here because there’s just not much that stands out otherwise, even the hyper-specific details sounding passé. Except for that “middle finger was a peace sign”, which suggests that someone on the 6-person writing team (Ellie’s not credited) watches Rick and Morty.
[4]

Alfred Soto: These memories recollected in tranquility have the logic of an addled mind. “We were sipping on emotions” isn’t the first “huh?” moment. Ten dollars hasn’t been a stack since Chester Arthur was president. No teen has ever confused a Honda with a Maybach. Musically “First Time” is unwieldy too. The main riff — a pretty restatement of Toto’s “Africa” — evokes a pleasant haze, but Kygo adds the bloops and bleeps that are de rigeur in an EDM-drenched pop scene. If this be wisdom, give me madness.
[4]

Anthony Easton: The blankness comes from Kygo’s affectless delivery; the flat, Lorde inspired electronics, that meanders but never quite commits to a beat…the worst of this was how badly written it is, a Frankenstein’s monster of cliches, stopped from the very first line.
[2]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: “First Time” strives to capture the nostalgia of adolescent love, but somehow manages to make the same exact mistake “Closer” did by including a clunky, forced rhyme scheme. That partially worked in the latter’s favor, though, as the song had the spirit of a wide-eyed teenager. This, however, wants to be pensive, so it’s hard to justify that issue amidst the song’s air of seriousness. Call me grouchy, but everything in this song sounds like a teenager who claims they’re wise beyond their years. From the specific mention of Bon Iver’s “re: stacks” to the laughably ineffective kick drum two-thirds of the way in, this is just all way too humorless.
[2]

Crystal Leww: I hate to be dramatic, but Ellie Goulding singing ‘ten dollars was a fat stack’ seems mildly racist.
[5]

Will Adams: Kygo steps outside his box to create something that sounds like it could fit in with the dreamy pop of the overlooked Halcyon, but without the strength of Goulding’s writing, it fails. Here, subtlety’s drained in favor of metaphor dump and meaningless imagery (“the middle finger was our peace sign”). And that’s not even getting to the chorus, whose string of “fat stack-Maybach” rhymes continues the awful trend of white artists shoehorning hip hop tropes where they do not belong (though it was at that point I became relieved that Goulding isn’t a writer on this).
[4]

Alex Clifton: I wish that Kygo had picked someone other than Ellie Goulding for the vocals. It’s not that she sounds bad–I’d actually say this is the strongest song she’s been featured on since “I Need Your Love,” and this is certainly miles better than anything on Delirium. But I don’t buy the idea that Ellie ever had a time when “ten dollars was a fat stack”–she sounds too glossy for that. Nor do I ever get the sense from this song that this affair was a “wildfire” when the music is so laid-back. Kygo should have gone with Halsey. She’d oversing the whole thing, but there’d be some actual emotion in it.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: For all of its vanilla feel, the vastness of “Love Me Like You Do” suited post-EDM Ellie Goulding. So Kygo was on somewhat of a right direction tweaking his beach-side shtick to fit the tone of 50 Shades Darker. The songwriters didn’t get the memo, though, leaving Goulding to draw history out of a collection of someone else’s mementos. Or at least, she doesn’t interact them like they’re hers. With fake-deep memories like a drag of her first cigarette or Bon Iver’s “Re: Stacks,” can you blame her for not claiming that they are?
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Con: I don’t get what people hear in Goulding’s voice, which always reads very empty to me. Con: The silly “remember when” lyrics, which seem to be directed towards those in their 20s; I’m 46, so that’s not gonna work for me. Pro: That Kygo has severely dropped the BPMs on this and essentially made a pop single that just happens to have the same old EDM tricks in its chorus. But I’m happy that it’s not only not uptempo, but it’s not even really midtempo; this is basically an EDM ballad. And it stands out and works. Not exceptionally well, but enough.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: Quite why Herefordshire’s Ellie Goulding ever thought it a good idea to cement the carpet-scraping cringeworthiness of these lyrics with her voice might seem a mystery, but when considered with 2015’s “On My Mind” it’s clear she very much has form. Counting the clangers is a task in itself, such is the difficulty of listening to her utter the words “ten dollars was a fat stack” without an ounce of misplaced irony. Perhaps Selena Gomez did love The Libertines when she was 17, but this desperate grab for American currency is in no way legal tender.
[4]

Very pretty. Oh and the song’s alright too.

[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Ryo Miyauchi: Back around 2007 in the wake of bands following the Dashboard Confessional wave, “I Smile” would’ve been a second-tier single the emos more in the know would slap on their MySpace page. Day6 don’t need that kind chorus in “I Smile” built for a festival call-and-response to do what they do best, those kids might say. Only the true softies can appreciate this sappy high-school slow dance.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Shimmering emotional pop-rock like this is a delicate balancing act, and for the most part, “I Smile” shimmers, emotes, pops and rocks gently and smartly, as if made for a prom slow dance or a first kiss in a medium-budget romcom. Towards the end it gets a little overwrought for its own good. I’m sure it’d sound better in a live setting with thousands of punters singing along.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Remove the quasi-abrasive synthesized buzzing and Chris Carrabas might’ve wailed this at the Coral Sky Amphitheater in 2005.
[5]

Alex Clifton: This feels like Coldplay circa 2005, which is truly not a bad thing — it just gets buried in the mix of all the other bands that have attempted to sound like Coldplay in the last twelve years. The music swells appropriately, the vocals are smooth, the emotional payoff feels pretty decent, and yet it feels like a retread of music from a decade ago. It’s either that or I’m officially Old. I’m not sure it will win over anyone who isn’t in the mood for an earnest, un-self-conscious ballad, but I like it nonetheless.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: DAY6: a boy band that’s also a rock band, for real — and their songs are good; this might be their best yet. “I Smile” is (almost) 4 minutes of beautiful ache, internal anguish doing everything it can to put on a pretty face, literally: “Even though it hurts I smile,” they sing. The keyboards plink out a sad melody, the guitars surge, and the longing is palpable. The emo teenager in me is swooning so hard.
[9]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: A strong melodic hook and lack of histrionics can go far in the world of Korean ballads. But it’s the post-rock informed tremolo picking that told me everything I needed to know about this song. It provides “I Smile” with an inward-looking, overtly moody atmosphere and Day6 make sure to employ it prudently. That, along with other gimmicky musical tropes, often replaced strong songwriting for many a Korean indie band during the mid-to-late 2000s. The comparison isn’t necessarily appropriate — Day6’s tracks have much higher production quality and aren’t quite as sparse — but I also can’t recall another time when a K-pop song opened a floodgate of memories I have of Bluedawn, Donawhale, and the like. Regardless, “I Smile” channels wistful melancholy as effortlessly as the best of them, be it those indie artists or titans in the industry.
[7]

Jessica Doyle: This is a ridiculous complaint to make for a song coming out of the K-pop Big Three, but it feels as if there’s too much loaded in, especially in the chorus, where the guitars and the driving drums somehow end up a mushy mess. (In the verses there’s more room to breathe. The rock-band approach gives each DAY6 member something to do, so the lyricists don’t have to strain to make sure to allot a minimum of 0.5 seconds per singing voice.) Dropping out the percussion for the next-to-last chorus improves things a bit but feels like such an arranging-by-numbers move I can’t appreciate it. But I’m unfairly grumpy. I could’ve used a longer moratorium on “smiling even if it hurts” lyrics.
[4]

Presenting Rascall Troughs: The Tribute Act.

[Video][Website]
[4.43]

Katie Gill: What sounds like a play by numbers love song is instantly complicated by a beautiful music video: “How Not To” goes from a song about dealing with a failed relationship to a crippling examination about alcoholism. The lyrics are what introduce complexity to this otherwise play by numbers production — this is a sound that’s more Rascall Flatts than Rascall Flatts’ latest album.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Anonymous craftsmanship like “How Not To” piles up by the hundreds of thousands in Nashville, awaiting the right treatment. Dan + Shay didn’t write it, but they sing the negative-as-affirmative as if they did. I don’t want to oversell its virtues; they don’t either. Tough romantic yearning in which no one breaks a sweat.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: These cutesy-poo country boys just notched their third consecutive Country Airplay #1 with this, and I think I’ve figured out the secret to their success: they’re the new Rascal Flatts. Their songs are songs of bullshit uplift, scrubbed so squeaky clean that there’s no grit or anything real to them whatsoever, much like Dan and Shay themselves. 
[2]

Stephen Eisermann: I don’t like Rascall Flatts because of the nasally delivery that is found in everyone of their songs, and Dan + Shay are just as bad. I legitimately thought I played the wrong song because of the similarity in their voices. Middle of the road, country-pop, mid-tempos are barely listenable when delivered by great vocalists (see Keith, Brad, or Carrie), so when they sound this bad I literally cannot. 
[3]

Edward Okulicz: I’m a sucker for the way the chorus feels like it’s going to come around again for another go, but then just repeats the title. Great trick, one that’s devastating on an actually good chorus. Here, not so much, but lots of effort went in to the production and I was almost fooled.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Well, you certainly have no problem not thinking about your material.
[4]

Ashley John: When I used to choreograph, one of my dance teachers told me she started her brainstorming by closing her eyes, listening to the song on repeat with a pen and paper and sketching out the hills and valleys of the track. I frequently stole her technique when I was stuck on my own solos. Starting with my pencil in the middle of a piece of paper, I’d draw a horizontal line, stretching it up and down as the song directed. I come back to this process sometimes when I review songs on here. If I close my eyes and try to map this song out, it’s a steady, flat line. 
[4]

Before we get all critical: OOOOMMMMGGG YASSS SLAY ME SHANIA. WHERE IS THE VIDEO!!! Ahem.

[Video][Website]
[5.56]

Stephen Eisermann: This song has me so conflicted. Sure, Shania is believable is hell when she tells us “I trusted you so much, you’re all that mattered,” and her wordplay is still quick and witty, but there was something missing. I couldn’t figure it out at first as I was too entranced by the novelty and newness of the track, but my sister sums it up best: “why does Keith Urban sound like that?” Oh yeah… her voice. Gone is the playful bounce in her voice that made songs like “Up!” and “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” so fun and light, replaced instead by an overly processed, husky voice that seems to struggle to stay on key. I realize how harsh it is, but I dare any Shania fan to play the songs side by side and tell me they don’t hear a distinct difference — it’s jarring. Really. Still, I can’t help but root for someone who is willing to be so plainly vulnerable, as when she simply states “I had to believe that things would get better.” Though celebrity transparency in popular music has become more common (in big part thanks to women for being so brave, holla!) most of these truths are captured in primarily sad songs, but Shania lays it all on the table and refuses to be negative about her truth. So I’ll follow her path, now, and choose instead to view the wrong turns in my life in a positive light, rather than drowning my sorrows with Adele in one hand, and a glass of Lemonade in the other.
[7]

Alfred Soto: A post-divorce affirmation that treats mixing board drollery as a delight as unexpected as being newly single, “Life’s About to Get Good” reminds audiences that Shania Twain invented the virtual arena. Lots of artists, from Alabama to Garth Brooks, had filled stadiums; Twain and co-writer/producer/ex Robert “Mutt” Lange treated songs like 60,000 Vox amplifiers ready for Wembley. I have little invested in her career or her ex’s other than to note how I wish she’d fronted Def Leppard, and not much to say about “Life’s About to Get Good” other than to succumb, faintly, to its good cheer.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: Like “Up!” 15 years before it, “Life’s About to Get Good” is a little lie Shania tells herself to keep her head together. Even she knows it’s a ridiculous fib to counteract a shattering break-up; I can’t hear her signature brand of blind optimism without also picking up a hint of sarcasm. It’s admittedly a difficult lie to believe during these times even for this Shania fan. But her school of thought also does make my other, more negative options — sulking, bickering or whatever else — a useless course of action, if only for a moment.
[5]

Katie Gill: Look I’m not even gonna fucking PRETEND to be impartial here. The queen of the country pop crossover is back with a new album and an amazing new song! It’s a light, summer jam, with Shania just brushing off the dirt off her shoulders and going “Mutt Lange WHO?” The blissful and breezy instrumentation hides so much beautiful pettiness. “It’s time to forget you forever” she cheerfully sings in a ‘fuck it, I don’t care’ sort of tone, giving it a matter of fact spin where other artists would have gone for petulant or nasty. Who cares if it sounds a bit too much like Little Big Town’s “drunk on wine coolers with the other moms” phase? It’s new Shania! She’s amazing! This song is amazing! Go buy her album in September!
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: I was worried about this one, going in. I’m a huge Shania fan — but I also recognize that a huge part of her previous success was her ex-husband and former producer and co-writer, “Mutt” Lange. He gave her records a Def Leppard kick which made them sound like nothing else in country music through the ’90s and ’00s. But that said, Shania’s the one who sold those records, not only writing most of her own lyrics, but delivering them like no one else could. 2011’s “Today Is Your Day” didn’t exactly engender much goodwill, either. And the producers on “Life’s About to Get Good” are Matthew Koma — best known for co-writing Zedd’s “Clarity” and working with a slew of EDM producers — and Ron Aniello. Aniello’s presence clearly helps; he produced the last two Bruce Springsteen studio albums (along with a bunch of Adult Top 40 mush by the likes of Lifehouse and Barenaked Ladies, to be fair) and, I’m guessing, adds the country touch, while Koma gives it a shiny pop sheen. To be fair, this isn’t much of a country record, sounding much more pop even if it’s got a banjo riffing through it. But that’s okay, because Shania sounds genuinely happy again, rising like the proverbial phoenix from the ashes of her horrific break-up from Lange (which she references in the song’s lyrics) and looking forward positively. This is also very much a summery sing-a-long kind of song. Is it amazing? No. Is it good? Yeah. Is it good enough? Yep. So I’ll take it, and hope for more from her forthcoming first new studio album in 15 years. *crosses fingers*
[7]

Julian Axelrod: There’s something about the new Shania Twain single that’s charmingly out of time, and not just because I typed “new Shania Twain single” in 2017. It’s expertly made mom music, the perfect end-credits song for the type of romantic comedy Hollywood doesn’t make anymore. But there’s also something refreshing about hearing a woman in her 50s sing about real adult pain. The details of the verses are heartbreaking (especially in the context of Shania’s divorce from Mutt Lange) but they make the chorus all the more triumphant. It takes real strength to forgive the people who hurt you and do what’s best for yourself, and I admire Shania so much for turning her pain into a universally resonant rallying cry. After 15 Twain-free years, we finally know what she’s been up to: learning, growing, and overcoming.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: I know Shania didn’t plan on completely losing her voice a couple years ago, but, well, you can tell. It would be excusable if the arrangement didn’t suggest that Up! didn’t just have red, green and blue mixes, but also beige.
[1]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: I’m by no means a big Shania Twain fan but she could occasionally use and transcend her frustratingly simple and cliché-ridden lyrics to capture something universal. Her M.O. is inherently dangerous though, as it’s easy for something familiar and straightforward to sound mundane and trite. “Life’s About to Get Good” doesn’t have anything I find completely egregious but Twain’s characteristically peppy demeanor and shimmering production feel like they’re (once again) compensating for lyrics that could essentially appear on a Hallmark card. That this was produced by someone who’s worked with artists involved in the contemporary Christian music scene is, to say the least, unsurprising. But hey, this is exactly what a Shania Twain song in 2017 would sound like so those who love her will presumably enjoy this.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Can’t decide whether playing with the different meanings of “about” as the basis of a chorus is clever or cloying, but all great Shania songs have danced on the borderline between those two. This one’s not great, though — no more than fine. Chosen as a single by her son apparently and I hope it’s a poor choice as it sounds like a middling album track. Not that there’s any shame in being a middling Shania Twain album track, because even when they weren’t of the same quality as the Twainbangers you know and love and karaoke when blind drunk, she attacked them with conviction. Her voice evidently no longer has the same contagious buoyancy that some of her frothiest songs benefited from (compare this to “C’est La Vie” or “Whatever You Do! Don’t!” — two marvellous non-singles of hers). Fortunately, Twain was never one to give out her album’s best song as its lead single, so the album campaign might yet be about to get good.
[6]

European dance hits, of course, have had many Jukebox outings, though not always with such complete credits…

[Video]
[4.62]

Iain Mew: A European dance hit without a hint of tropical, and where the (internet-discovered) singer gets a proper credit — that seems almost quaint at this point! The song is clever and pleasingly unusual by more than chart comparison, though. Pham’s understated vocal is a perfect fit for looking in on the small-scale mundanity of being a DJ (coffee, repetition, minor crowds) before she and C-BooL flip into a chorus about the compensating feeling of getting lost in the music, set to booming brass and beats that make the prospect sound worth it all.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Kind of fun, like you’d imagine from something grafted from cuttings of Martin Solveig’s “Intoxicated,” Rune’s “Calabria” and Perfecto Allstars’ “Reach Up,” but I like all of them more than I like this. I’m glad the track isn’t tropical or “chill,” but guest vocalist Giang Pham wouldn’t have sounded out of place had it been.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: My God, what a horrendous set of lyrics, like that infamous 2013 New Yorker piece on Afrojack set to music. And as for the music, it’s the most simplistic EDM-pop imaginable, riding a fake horn riff that doesn’t even bother to attempt to sound like real horns. 
[1]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Utterly generic EDM is harmless, but these lyrics are delivered in such lifeless, zombified manner that I imagine it will trigger distressing epiphanies when heard live of how forced the communal festival experience can be. Which is interesting in theory, but only when attached to a worthwhile song.
[3]

Ashley John: So weirdly meta, describing in detail the urge that would compel someone to listen a dance track like this within the song itself. I wish this song were interesting, but when everything in 2017 sounds like desperate dread, this song gives little to latch on to. 
[4]

Stephen Eisermann: I appreciate the different take this song offers, with Giang lusting after the DJ’s connection to the music and position, versus lusting after him/her directly, but that’s not enough to make this song interesting. I prefer my house vocalists to be belters, and Giang’s voice is too soft and conversational for me to be at all engaged. Softness doesn’t belong on any dance floor I’m trying to groove on, sorry.
[4]

Will Adams: A watered-down version of Martin Solveig & GTA’s “Intoxicated,” all horn blarts and clubby bass. As usual, music-about-music needs to tread carefully or risk being too inward-looking. “DJ Is Your Second Name” is so caught up in the minutiae of tour life that it forgets to remind you of the important part of music: its ability to be transcendent.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: The first time I heard this and “Know Your Name,” it was Pride Day, but I was nowhere near the parade for various reasons. Something felt vaguely subversive about these lyrics — “I wanna feel the rhythm just like you” jumped out at me as the moment this went beyond a simple infatuation song into something strangely personal. There’s an undercurrent of jealousy that caught me off-guard, as I saw friends on social media, LGBTQ or not, celebrating in either defiance or denial of the backward steps the country has taken this year. The maybe-imagined subtext of this song — “I want to be with you but also be you” — is as queer as anything in that Mary Lambert song, if more introverted than what Lambert trades in. A song titled “DJ Is Your Second Name” probably wasn’t intended to be that sort of thing, but I suppose that’s what was so interesting about it to me. So I put on my headphones, walked down the street, and had my own little queer party between my ears.
[7]

Two appearances on the Jukebox, both solo…

[Video]
[6.22]

Katie Gill: The fact that Mary Lambert isn’t a household name is downright criminal. She exceeds at bright and cozy pop music, the musical equivalent of a gummy bear. It’s sugary and a bit too saccharine at certain points, but it’s absolutely adorable and sweet so you stomach it. “Know Your Name” is no exception. The song’s a high-energy bundle of cheer and pep, an adorably relatable song about first crushes and butterflies in your stomach.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: Solid new wavy pop-rock, like Kelly Clarkson almost went for after “My Life Would Suck Without You.” Lambert’s a really good singer, which helps.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Kinda like the intersection of Carly Rae Jepsen (Kiss in sound, the Curiosity EP in voice), the Pipettes, “About You Now,” and that stuttered “ah-ah” in every other pop song circa 2011.
[7]

Alfred Soto: While it sports Shania Twain’s preternatural pep and a lot of the ossified girl group tropes that killed the Pipettes, I’ve trouble imagining anyone listening to “Know Your Name” freely.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: Mary sounds sleepy on this cutesy bubble-gum pop song, but it’s hard to blame her; I’d be just as tired if I was stuck recording a pop song with production this peppy that lacks an engaging hook. The music is so loud that Mary seemingly opted out of trying to compete.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: That fizzy pop production could have dated the song as much as that Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting arcade machine in the video. But I love some Hyper Fighting and I love some hyper crushing. She unleashes as if she knows her object of desire is looking back; she has to be.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Lesbian sex anthem that inherits what is traditionally gay male lack of inhibition, a queer ode which ramps up perfectly in time for Pride. Would be slightly more interesting if Lambert didn’t hold back — some of the talk of holding and kissing, instead of fucking, suggests an earnest coyness. The beat reads filth, the words read something less interesting. 
[6]

Hannah Jocelyn: This gorgeous bubblegum pop song is probably liberating for most, but for a questioning person like me, who remains wary and self-conscious about expressing myself openly, it’s hard to hear. How much do I let myself escape into the candy-colored world of this song when we just passed the one-year anniversary of the Pulse shooting, when Judge Gorsuch’s track record is in the news? How does one forget reality for even a few minutes and enter a place where love actually is love, no questions asked, before being thrust out once time is up? Where even is this alternate universe in which being queer doesn’t have the slightest bit of sadness, guilt, or pain attached to it? 
[6]

Lauren Gilbert: I hate crushes. Hate them, hate them, hate them. I hate feeling like I’m not in control, that someone I don’t really know can hold my heart in their hands. And this track is exactly the opposite, reveling in the rush, the flood of oxytocin for every first. It’s a candy-colored fairytale, without all the weight and expectations. And, yes, part of my rating here is that Mary Lambert looks like me and thinks that her affections might be returned, that she will get a chance to drive her crush wild. I need more Mary Lamberts — will always need more fat queer girls who won’t apologize and expect more than life as a punchline.
[8]

French songwriter’s first appearance on the nu-Jukebox…

[Video]
[7.12]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Much like the songs on Camille’s Le fil, “Fontaine de lait” features an intentional sound design component that’s as thoughtful as ever, strategically used to capture the song’s lyrics–the title translates to “Fountain of Milk,” and this is indeed a song about nursing a child. Camille’s voice lightly wraps around you while her periodic puffs of air focus your attention and alleviate any worry. With you now swaddled, the synths flicker and alternate to gently rock you back and forth.
[7]

Adaora Ede: ‘Tis indeed a fountain of milk — Camille’s style is smooth and easily lapped up in the form of a bare-bones chamber pop song. My four year of high school French helped me little in understanding the meaning of the song given the minimalist space synth outlay, but it may or may not be deliberate, a post-musical experiment in what happens when you mush certain reverberations and noises together. And it’s all held up beautifully by the slightly balladic, kinda-Gregorian adlibbing and choral work.
[8]

Tim de Reuse: Aggressively sweet, full of mouth percussion and breaths and dainty synthwork — I think the pitter-pattering “da da da”s might push it a little too close to a twee car commercial soundtrack. Everything else, though, is clever; in particular, the crispness of her performance allows her to have a great deal of fun with her wordplay, threading phrases like “Aller là / Alléluia / Aller où il est où il luit” through disorienting hairpin turns before they finally land.
[7]

Kalani Leblanc: “Fontaine de lait” is almost an imitation of what the rest of the world think of Parisians–smooth, chic, and probably sharper than you. The song starts atop a lush bass mountain and trickles down faster than you’d think into a stripped yet still effective version of itself. Camille’s last “dadum” leaves your ears cleaner than they were before listening. 
[9]

Will Adams: It’s hard not to enjoy a song that’s as flighty as Imogen Heap’s “Little Bird,” the way it floats past different keys, never landing on solid ground. That Camille builds her crystalline arrangement so gently makes the sudden choral outro a bit jarring, but overall “Fontaine de lait” is hushed pop at its most decorated.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Both ornate — the flutes and vocals are shaped like filigree — and slippery, lyrics curling out of your grasp just as you register them (likely why I always forget how much I like Camille’s records when they’re not on). Femininity as finely crafted details, as fountains of milk: a centuries-old aesthetic, but so few people in pop (alt-, art- or otherwise) really try it nowadays.
[7]

Iain Mew: It progresses a bit like going through the moment of vertigo that comes with drifting off unexpectedly on a train, then catching yourself with a roll of the neck back upwards, and deciding to just go along with the beckoning of rest. I think I mean this as a recommendation.
[6]

Alfred Soto: A lovely arabesque, a kiss of perfumed air, perhaps longer than it should be.
[6]

Checking in with Istanbul…

[Video]
[6.29]

Alfred Soto: A passionately strummed trifle from this Turkish singer with hints of PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love phase.
[6]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Göksel’s two greatest strengths — melodicism and sensuality — emphasized in a way that is almost overpowering. The cadence, mostly the restraint in the guitar/oud main riff, gives her a lot of room, but I don’t know if it was a good decision to put her vocal so high in the mix. Still, Göksel remains unparalleled in Turkish Pop when it comes to constructing melodies; you can hear that brilliance in the bridge, when her range opens up, the violin joins in and the beat finally goes somewhere. 
[6]

Iain Mew: In the guitar figures of “Tam da Şu An,” with their galloping rhythm and audible scraping of individual strings, Göksel has a great starting point, evocative of a timeless sense of danger, a soundtrack for kicking up dust on the way to epic deeds. Her matching the feeling in her singing, if not expanding much on it, is enough to set up the solo towards the end to hit hard.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: The tail-chasing music initially seems to follow the beat of her story, but the cycling groove starts to wear out pretty quick as it becomes clear she doesn’t move much from where she started. The guitars provide no major peaks nor valleys, and I hear nothing new from each reiteration of the titular phrase, a hook she keeps on pushing to me as if I didn’t catch it the first time.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: My selfish, uncultured ass would love to hear this in Spanish/English so I could fully understand the lyrics in real time (as opposed to relying on after the fact translations). This song, with the slick, strumming guitar and Göksel’s sultry vocals, is one of the more naturally sexy songs of the year with Göksel completely dominating the track. Her sexuality oozes from her vocals, and I can’t help but wonder just how many people would inevitably sign up for her class on commanding your own sexuality at the YMCA.
[7]

Tim de Reuse: This song is due many positive marks for its loping, engaging sense of momentum and its intertwining plucked melodic lines; unfortunately, all high points are made moot by the rusty, chafing distortion on the vocal line, which bodyslams the whole experience down dangerously close to “unlistenable.”
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: Göksel beds down a folk-blues groove and burrows deep inside. The melody draws from Arabic pop but her swelling vocal, solemn and intimate, stands solitary. The longer this track winds on, the starker she sounds.
[8]