The Singles Jukebox

But most of all, you’ve let us down…

[MySpace]
[3.92]

Ian Mathers: Aww, thanks guys! I totally did want proof that I don’t automatically love everything with Taylor Swift in it. And all it took was one schlocky, hookless power ballad!
[3]

Hillary Brown: A weakly produced piece of treacle topped with Cool Whip. Ecch.
[2]

Martin Skidmore: The male nasal whine makes an uncomfortable blend with Taylor’s sweet tones, and the playing is fairly clumsy — neither can do a power ballad, really. The song’s okay, but it might work better with Jim Steinman, Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler. Back to energetic rock-pop and country pop respectively, please.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: At least late Aerosmith ballads have an incurable ham at their center. And I do find the swooping chorus mighty effective the first time around. That’s probably because the opening verse is so bloody awful, though; anything comes as a relief after it.
[3]

Matt Cibula: Not bad for shiny shiny mopey pseudo-country, especially when the string section starts, but knocked down for the ennui and crap lyrics, and because I hate this group’s name. Just hate it.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: “Love Drunk” was a fun slice of pop-punk, and these guys are smart to try and capitalize on its success by releasing a gloopy ballad. Hell, bonus points for snagging Taylor Swift. But good demographic targeting isn’t always the same as good music, and there’s too little bite and too much melodrama for them to pull this off convincingly. Lifehouse and The Calling did this stuff regularly and (more importantly) well at the beginning of the Aughties, but while Boys Like Girls strike the right mood, “Two is Better than One” is lyrically vague and limp. Maybe they should have let Ms. Swift pen it.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Overproduced, goopy, lacking the moral ambiguity that undercuts the teenage romanticism in the best of Swift’s work, treading the same ground badly. Sadness.
[3]

Chuck Eddy: Can’t say for sure this is their best hit ever, but I’m confident in saying it’s her worst. Then again, Metal Mike Saunders thinks “Love Drunk” sounds like the Backstreet Boys (“is that Nick or Brian on the lead vocs?”), so maybe this festering ball of makeout mush is a letdown from Boys Like Girls, too. As for the title, these kids all need some remedial arithmetic tutoring from Brad Paisley (see “Math” on his new album); a girl plus a group equals more than two, right?
[6]

Iain Mew: Taylor’s voice serves only as a stark contrast to the strained falsetto and bizarre enunciation of the rest of the song, which is totally lacking in much needed turbo guitar power.
[3]

Anthony Miccio: This is such a perfect gloss of the high-pitched harmonies from Once — beefed but not overpowered by the studio bombast — that I hope it inspires MTV to produce a remake (or rip-off) for the songbirds to star in. Inane and cloying? Sure, but you can’t spell grade-A bullshit without “grade-A.”
[8]

Additional Scores

Spencer Ackerman: [3]
Alfred Soto: [4]