The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Avicii – Levels

Answers a question some of us have been asking since “Right Round”, it does.


[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Katherine St Asaph: And hey, it turns out removing that variable leaves a perfectly OK dance track!
[6]

Brad Shoup: He welds the beat to the melody so well. And the wholesale lift of Etta James – presented with nearly no cosmetic touches – was an inspired choice. But those are two very different elements, and neither is developed particularly well. Far too much time is spent toward the end dog-paddling with a riff that’s already gone stale.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: Look. This is fairly enjoyable but rote squiggly house music, except for the fact that, halfway through, out of nowhere, it deploys forty magnificent seconds of Etta James. And little bit of Etta goes a very long way.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: Couldn’t it just be five-plus minutes of the Etta James sample? When it’s not playing, all I’m thinking is “Where’s Etta?”
[5]

Iain Mew: Basically sounds half way between two of the last three Guetta singles (“Little Bad Girl”, “Where Dem Girls At”) without the guest stars. Which gives you opportunity to concentrate on the loops. They’re fine, but never mind Flo Rida, the fact that Avicii shoehorns in a vocal bit with no concern for flow or continuity suggests that he was aware that the likely response to the unadorned track was always “is that it?”.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: When Avicii sued Leona Lewis for a credit on “Collide,” I thought he didn’t know his own good luck. Turns out he did and he’s some kind of Machiavellian genius. His own productions are competent but repetitive but his business acumen is obviously sharp: you have the hit yourself across Europe and also rake in the money from a big mainstream star in other parts of the world. Gotta say, talk about wringing a lot out of a little — “Levels” is no super-imaginative work of art just like “Fade Into Darkness” wasn’t.
[5]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comments