Tuesday, June 7th, 2016

MNEK – At Night (I Think About You)

And we think about Ghost Town DJs…


[Video][Website]
[6.15]

David Moore: After his success with Vanessa Carlton, I was really hoping for Ghost Town DJs.
[6]

Katie Gill: I hope he paid the copyright for whatever cheap video game music he’s using. I also hope he fired the DJ that came up with that horrific drop.
[3]

Cassy Gress: This song didn’t need a drop! Why does it have one? It built tension, up through “madNESS!”, to that first chorus, which sounds like a darkened cathedral with bright lights blazing in through the stained glass windows, and then the unnecessary drop. Even after that, it builds back up to cathedrals and howling again, and that’s the best part; why interrupt it? Goddamn, at points in this he sounds a little like BT, which I never even expected. Best of all, this completely stands alone from “My Boo,” which this title constantly reminds me of.
[8]

Brad Shoup: The title is so close to a Ghost Town DJ’s joke. But the song is a kind of physical comedy, wherein MNEK emotes into a stiff Eurodance wind. He finds his footing in time, and the geography levels to meet his steps.
[7]

Will Adams: You guys I think we’re getting closer to trance making a comeback :) :) :)
[6]

Adaora Ede: Looking at the title, I had assumed that “At Night (I Think About You)” couldn’t have been more than a jab at a current Internet phenomenon. But honestly, I should have been a bit smarter and looked closer at the differing prepositions in this song and this chorus of Ghost Town DJs’ “My Boo” as they find their cores in two completely separate forms of dance music. MNEK’s nippy synths and whirring melody are not unusual of generic EDM, yet the ante is slightly upped with powerhouse vocals (that are less over-emotional and much more controlled than those of “Never Forget You” fame, well done). Like I stated before though, it is somewhat generic and there isn’t much else to say about the production other than that it is dance floor fodder for the contemporary hit radio heads.
[5]

Alfred Soto: He’s good when he’s good; otherwise he’s an adult contemporary wannabe with dance trappings.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: A voice like Seal’s but thinner, a groove (once the drop kicks) like UK garage ca. 2000: ‘salright, but a bit less than the sum of its parts. 
[5]

Crystal Leww: “At Night” uses MNEK’s tried-and-true formula of a gorgeous vocal coupled with that pulsing house drop, but this bangs less hard than most of his own Small Talk EP and certainly less than “Never Forget You.” The formula still sounds good, but anything less than 100% from here on out is going to sound tired.
[5]

Peter Ryan: It’s such a tried-and-true premise that it’d be easy to undersell, but that’s never been MNEK’s deal. He burbles along with the track (immaculate and self-produced), working himself up, pulling it back, way too in his head, until the dam breaks on the bridge and we’re inundated with all of this pent up need, the shit he’s been trying so hard to stuff back down but just ends up calcifying quietly. The crux of the matter here is volume — “trust me, I’ve tried it a thousand times” — it’s really not any one person but the sum of them all, everything that never worked, like, not again… Sure, it’s short on specifics, but he exudes such an intimate familiarity with this routine, one that never gets any easier, that it feels fully real.
[9]

Gin Hart: Simultaneously an insipid breakup song and satisfying dance track. I love the way he yelps “-NESS,” but other than that feel clammy-neutral about everything before the drop. The fella knows how to make a good sound, but slips every time he focuses on lyrical/emotional content. 
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Heartily mining the darkness of the dead times until he hits and slips into an emotional vortex with the middle 8, MNEK may have fared even better if he’d descended further into it. That part is just a temporary diversion though: as his knees buckle under the weight of the lump in his throat dropping down to them, he’s merely revealing how stiff his upper lip is for the rest of the song. You can’t decline to the depths continuously, but your mind can always race at the speed of that sorrowful skitter.
[8]

Claire Biddles: Pleading, confession bordering on humiliation, dim strobe lights over a face in the corner of a club at 2am, drink after drink after drink, forgetting then wanting then forgetting then wanting. The night as simultaneous site of sleeping alone and dancing among hundreds of others. “Rhythm of the Night” and “Dancing On My Own” and “Real” by Years & Years and now this. There’s always someone alone on the dancefloor.
[8]

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2 Responses to “MNEK – At Night (I Think About You)”

  1. ace call with BT, Cassy! it does kinda remind me of “Somnambulist”

  2. I’m never going to be objective about MNEK, and I pretty much love everything he’s done, this included.

    It’s definitely more straightforward than some of the songs on his excellent Small Talk EP (which all of you should track down) but after Never Forget You got him some chart traction I don’t mind something a little more obvious, if that’s what it takes to get us a North American tour.