Crying out for a great teen movie to put it on its soundtrack…

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[6.29]

Anthony Easton: This is Taylor 2.0, with less skill and less self-construction of personae, and Taylor’s construction of self is becoming frayed and blurred. So I should hate it, but the awkwardness, and the exaggeration of desire seems to be more authentically adolescent–maybe country nostalgia has the place of adults teaching children the world will not end at the first kiss or the first orgasm. The interesting thing about this, is that Risa recognizes that, without the adult intervention.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: “You Made It Rain” is the simple, post-prom swoon Taylor Swift has always been too complex to write without placing it as part of a bigger story. Not to say having narrative ambition is bad, but some of the best moments in life are just that — moments. And some of the best songs are ones where that moment and everything associated with it are brought out in the music and the ache and the release of a vivid, honest vocal performance. It’s not cheesy or syrupy, it’s beautiful. When she asks, “Did you have all the answers?” and when the organs sigh, I buy her as the wide-eyed naif. When the chorus hits, I feel her wonderment.
[9]

Iain Mew: This is a sweet song. A very, very sweet song. The first verse is beautiful in just as familiar a way as the scene it describes but Risa sells the hell out of it and makes it feel fresh. From there on it’s almost just one joyous sugar rush of chorus, the “nanananana” backing vocals forcing the song onwards with unstoppable momentum. When she goes on to sing “you stole my breath”, I really believe it.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: Oh jeez. I had the bitterness festered and ready after reading the lyrics. Of course he didn’t make it rain. He Googled the weather on his smartphone five minutes before the date and used this tech-enhanced prognostication — not to mention seeing the clouds — to score. Risa draping this chipper crap-ever-after onto such an obvious line won’t end well for the speaker or the girls who believe her. And rain’s miserable no matter who you’re with, and “make it rain” is inextricable anyway from being slang for something else. Then I heard the song and heard Risa flutter and trill like Tanya Donelly. Of course I swooned.
[7]

Hazel Robinson: Utterly dreadful. The sum of the drippy sleeves on Taylor Swift’s dress for the “Love Story” video with the Serious Perceptive Observations in “Jar Of Hearts,” loosely crossed with a misheard, lift music version of the otherwise totally glorious Kiss The Rain.
[3]

Alfred Soto: I don’t know why I think this pretty ditty is middling – replace the title metaphor and you’ve got a Cranberries song (and still closer to a drizzle than a rain storm). Binder doesn’t rise beyond acoustic blandness; she rides the melody without challenging it.
[4]

Brad Shoup: “Maybe I dreamed it/It was so perfect/Like the world was a movie… set.” Now we’re somewhere. Welcome to Binder’s world, a paranoia-streaked realm in which the actors — human, heavenly, and material — are constantly negotiating interventions. Here be Sixpence None The Richer with hints of raga, reads the map.
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