Dave Stewart’s new band releases its debut single…
[Video][Website]
[3.78]
Anthony Easton: Beautiful call and response about what sex means in relation to gender, and perhaps culture. Some fantastic images, some beautiful woo-wooing, some great rhythmic bits, and a wide range of emotional outputs. Love this.
[8]
Iain Mew: I hate Joss ‘Soul’ Stone’s soulful voice with a soulful passion. Even Band Aid 20, which was already a cobbled together mess, was still made ten times worse once she showed up. The most impressive thing about “Miracle Worker” then is that, after Mick Jagger’s strangled threats to sort someone out with scalpels and lasers, her bits aren’t even the worst parts of the song.
[1]
Doug Robertson: I bet they all had fun hanging out together and making this, massaging each other’s egos, modestly referring to themselves as a supergroup and vaguely trying to remember exactly who Joss Stone actually is. It’s not fun for the rest of us, however, as unsurprisingly the output of a bunch of aged has-beens who have little relevance to the latter part of the 20th century, let alone the 21st, is just a confused mess of self indulgence, unlikely to satisfy the fans of any of the people involved, and certainly offering nothing to anyone who doesn‘t have a subscription to Mojo magazine. They probably think that by doing reggae they are being daring and exciting. Like the person who told them that this was a good idea, they are more wrong than a Neanderthal man’s understanding of global warming.
[2]
Brad Shoup: They wrote this from the chorus outward, surely. This is the kind of superstar lineup a Qatari oligarch would assemble for his son’s college graduation party.
[5]
Jonathan Bradley: “Don’t be preposterous!” Sorry, Damian Marley. Mick Jagger wasn’t listening.
[3]
Jer Fairall: It may be a match made in your fiftysomething stoner uncle’s dreams, but if you’re gonna construct a Jagger-led supergroup around a particular Stones era, Black and Blue is not the way to go.
[4]
Sally O’Rourke: Everything about SuperHeavy’s premise, from its contrived eclecticism to its conglomeration of egos, suggests cacophony. But on “Miracle Worker,” the band seems to have taken pains toward balance, even if the presence of A. R. Rahman and Dave Stewart is more implied than heard. Where the group runs into trouble the songwriting. The diversity of SuperHeavy’s component parts doesn’t yield cross-genre pollination; it forces its contributors to rally around a common denominator. Subtract the superficial reggae flourishes from “Miracle Worker,” and what’s left is as experimental and inventive as a Stones album track from the ’90s.
[4]
Alfred Soto: “Throwaway” and “Just Another Night” have made a few CD-R’s, and I enjoy Wandering Spirit, so I have more patience than others for Mick Jagger’s solo career. But not even Anne Bancroft can carry this ponderous example of superstar plutocracy: Damien Marley turns into Shabba Ranks, Joss Stone imitates the Gwen Stefani of “Underneath It All,” and Jagger is Jagger: elongating syllables and shouting as if he had something to prove, which maybe he does.
[5]
Zach Lyon: Yes, SuperHeavy is sort of disgusting everywhere, down to their name: they’re a supergroup, and they’re gonna make music about really heavy shit, man. Like, how the world has a lot of problems that can be solved by LOVE. That is a complete guess about the content of at least half of their songs and it is also 100% accurate. “Stewart and Mick had mutual liking for Indian orchestrations; thus, A. R. Rahman was added to the supergroup.” To rephrase that Wikipedia gem, “Stewart and Mick liked how some Indian instruments sounded so they decided to recruit the most popular Indian musician in the world.” Also, a Marley. And Joss Stone, whose reputation has far outlived her relevance — despite the fact that she hasn’t had a hit in years, she continues to stand tall as the least offensive musical performer alive. “Miracle Worker” has a pleasant chorus. I hate everything about this group.
[2]