The Singles Jukebox

Worry no more about our finalists for year’s worst song.

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[0.70]Alfred Soto: Because she hates your Cee-Lo/Saadiq retro mush, that’s why.
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Thomas Inskeep: Goes from Trainor-esque doo-wop manqué to would-be Winehouse-esque ’60s soul, which is bad enough. But it’s also in service of a lyric complaining that the girl Graham likes has, apparently, stopped stripping, which he sees as a problem.
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Iain Mew: I see “the uploader has not made this video available in your country” and I have to wonder — is Denmark ashamed of its huge star? Or are they saving him to launch on us later? I’d like to think “Strip No More” doesn’t have a chance, but it’s not unimaginable. Its clumsy updating of doo-wop is not so far off Trainor/Puth, the latter of whom Graham resembles vocally. The dickish lyric and the way it glories in self-absorbed petulance is pretty “Rude.” Initially hinting toward a naive narrator and then turning that around makes it even more likely his vileness is intentional. It still ends up with nothing from the woman’s side of the story, but you could call the twist clever, if Graham didn’t take the exact same beseeching tone as on the 100% earnest “Happy Home,” an over-reading of every line that could never pass for knowing. The combined effect when that meets the already over-explanatory “turned this boy into a man/inside a private room, I hope you understand” is excruciating.
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Will Adams: Plays out in much the same way as our latest case of “Man Who Feels Entitled to Woman,” with Lukas Graham pretending that he’s not mad she doesn’t want him but still insists on knowing why, ughh, why, UGH, WHYYYY. He even has the nerve to call her Destiny, as in, duh, of course he should get to be with her because it’s fate, not the condescending words (“I’m just so proud you made it through!”) he deploys to woo her. That it’s set to the recycled doo-wop that’s been plaguing radio ever since Meghan Trainor hit makes it all the more loathsome.
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Edward Okulicz: I find it hard to believe anyone involved in writing the lyrics to this has ever been near a strip club, or would even be allowed in, because they are clearly about ten. The more-or-less earnest delivery’s the really funny/tragic bit, while actually being neither funny nor tragic. If you can imagine it sung with some ego by some jerk who actually thinks he does deserve a woman you could treat it as a parody piece, and if it was sung by someone with a bit of emotional range who could inject it with some pathos you might get a giggle from some shredding and flailing. You don’t really get anything from this.
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Brad Shoup: It’s like Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing The Weeknd.
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Anthony Easton: Mumble mouthed, obsessive, with some of the worst writing I’ve heard his year, and a falsetto that moves between forced and lazy. Thinking anyone likes him is a mark of narcissism gone amuck. Only someone stupid or naive would think the stripper would actually love him.
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Katherine St Asaph: The sole bright spot: as far as I’m aware a burlesque takeoff (yuk yuk) of Sleep No More does not yet exist, so there’s still time to supplant this in cultural memory before it crosses over.
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Patrick St. Michel: Lukas Graham could probably make a good song if they had ambitions beyond the Ted 3 soundtrack.
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Josh Winters: If “Strip No More” were a made-for-TV movie, it would be the Seth McFarlane remake of High School Musical, and that’s really all you need to know.
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