The Singles Jukebox

Please summer jam, don’t be late…

[Video][Website]
[4.40]

Scott Mildenhall: Omi is Fatman Scoop, he is DJ Casper, he is Everything But The Girl: following up a surprise, long-gestating hit with a derivative of it. That was easier to succeed with in the pre-download era, with faces on TV and names on CD singles. In 2015, how do you ensure anyone at any point in the supply chain is actually bothered? Nico & Vinz and Mr Probz, for instance, would have been almost guaranteed top 40 follow-ups and a spot on Top of the Pops ten years ago, but now you’ve got to just hope for the best. Omi’s keeping the ball rolling, keeping the hoop up, and round and round it goes. It’s catchy, but not hypnotic, just familiar. He’s treading water, and in some places that’s a riskier strategy than ever.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Now this sounds like something trying to be a hit, as opposed to the laid-back “Cheerleader” that actually pulled it off. The extra effort makes this way more immediate, and the tropical vibe breezing through begs for a rewind back to June.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: The pleasant surprise of “Cheerleader” long since dissipated, Jamaican soul with “classy” Eurohouse elements no longer sounds so novel. Omi’s as moderately charming as ever, but the meaningless lyric does him no favors.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: You thought I changed my stance on him? Like Iyaz and his mentor Sean Kingston before him, Omi is just saying the dumbest shit in the world in autotune over the most pandering carnival soft-hands pap. This song is an Ed Hardy shirt coming back to fight us, and it cannot kick my ass no matter how many Jaeger bombs it’s done.
[1]

Alfred Soto: The hula-hula-hoop hook is a menace. Please decide: is she a Bugatti or a toy?
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: “Girl you got that body with them curves like a Bugatti I just wanna drive,” ick. I find it absurd that anyone thinks of Omi as a “reggae” singer, just because he’s from Jamaica — this is pop so generic it could be the property of Adam Levine. Except it may actually be worse.
[1]

Iain Mew: “Your love it winds me up” is the difference from “Cheerleader”, which felt all about winding down, inaction as its triumph. Here, the excitement sits oddly with the Balearic chill of the verses, and the emotion ends up feeling artificial and unconsidered. Combined with a succession of half-hearted hooks, it ends up a bit like hearing a quick-cutting advert for a compilation of Ultimate Holiday Vibes or something, little diverse fragments being mixed into one attempt at a cohesive whole and not going.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Until just this morning my city was experiencing a brief heatwave after a cold, windy September. In those conditions, this song sounded inviting and made me want to sit in the pool and drink mojitos. Today, the mercury has dropped and I’ve remembered that mojitos are overrated, I hate swimming and this song is almost too stupid to forgive. But I love the gentle lift and palpable excitement of that pre-chorus.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: “Cheerleader” was utterly charming and remains so: wisp-light because the effect would be spoiled with one feather more of weight. But no amount of “Jubel”-ation, tropical house, Bugatti rhymes or hula-hooping vowels will get Omi a second hit, no more than “Gentleman” did the same for Psy. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. People might hear him and not his overexposure.
[6]

Will Adams: On almost all counts, “Hula Hoop” is a better song than Felix Jaehn’s remix of “Cheerleader”: the mix is cleaner, the tropical house arrangement more detailed, and the songwriting smarter (check that nice text painting on the “HULA HULA HOOP HULA HULA HOOP” hook). And yet “Hula Hoop” will no doubt be less successful. Summer is over, and, as usual in the case of surprise summer smashes, folks don’t have too much interest in the artists behind those hits. It’s a shame: the central metaphor hits that rare sweet spot of being dumb if you think about it (what kind of hula hoop winds up?) but harmless fun if you just let it go.
[6]