The Singles Jukebox

:,(

[Video][Website]
[3.77]

Katherine St Asaph: The pop industry, ever innovative in the wrong ways, has figured out how to work aural emoji. There’s a very easy critique — maybe too easy — about literal sound cues standing in for complex emotions, but I’m more concerned with the Bieber horrors that await us later in Noah’s career if this becomes a hit.
[3]

Iain Mew: It’s nice that she looks back happily enough on her time on Ponyo to pick up a tribute to giant Studio Ghibli tears. Unfortunately the song mostly serves as evidence that Labrinth has taken the success of “Beneath Your Beautiful” as licence to indulge all his worst tendecies — all-conquering sentimentality, needlessly inserting himself, and putting in every conceptual idea he has without consideration. In both songs, the result with their title lines is grindingly irritating.
[2]

Jonathan Bradley: There might have been pathos in this emotive EDM, but it was surrendered to the goofiest sound effect bestowed upon a tune since Craig David was all over your…
[2]

A.J. Cohn: I’m delighted by the ridiculousness of the line “Lovin’ you would make Jesus cry” being followed by the plip-plop of two drops of water. While Noah Cyrus was so clearly aiming for a Bangerz-esque “banger” — part “Adore You,” part “Wrecking Ball” — Labrinth was obviously just playing around with the production with a whole arsenal of silly sound effects at his disposal.
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: I could do without the kitchen-sink sound effects; if I had to only pick one, I’d definitely nix the train horn. They act as placeholders to feelings the two don’t quite have the strength to hit. Clever, but silence would’ve been the better choice if they were truly at a loss for words. Subtraction already seems like the goal anyway, so why not go all in?
[5]

David Sheffieck: One of the better duets — and featuring the best gimmick — in recent memory. And beyond functioning as a ear-catching metonymy, that teardrop plink allows the moment when Labrinth wails “cry” over and over to land with the force of an EDM drop, and Cyrus’s “keep on making me cry” to work as soaring catharsis. It’s clever songwriting, given emotional heft by the total commitment of both singers.
[8]

Megan Harrington: One of the better qualities of “Closer” by The Chainsmokers ft. Halsey was its obviousness. Every feeling, every tumultuous run-in was right there on the surface in the plainest, most evident way. “Make Me (Cry)” develops that obviousness, embracing it in clever ways. There’s plinking (tear) droplets and surging strings which allow the production to overwrite the lyrics, but the song’s greatest strength is its titular double entendre. Whether it’s hated you or needed you, whichever act of romance the two narrators are involved in, the result is always wetness. In this way, all the watery sound effects and general wooze surpass their too-cuteness and, in fact, temper the thematic excess by making it non-verbal. “Make Me (Cry)” is a standout in the ongoing season of duets. 
[8]

Ramzi Awn: In trying to set itself apart, “Make Me (Cry)” sounds rather plain. The bad ideas competing with each other make for an embarrassment of quirks. And nothing can quite top the droplet sample. Noah Cyrus and Labrinth seem to have comprehensively misappropriated a Lady Antebellum demo.   
[2]

Will Adams: Cyrus shows some potential here, especially in drawing out the forlorn prettiness of the chorus. Too bad she’s been saddled with perpetual fountain of bad ideas Labrinth. There are so many awful choices here: the film reel opening (so authentic!!), that sonic jump scare, the tinny snare in the chorus, those piano swipes in the second verse, sloppy vocal doubling, reverb doused over everything. “Make Me (Cry)” aims for the woozy, numbed pop of Bridgit Mendler’s “Atlantis” but misses the mark completely. I can’t not give at least a few points, though, because “all you ever do is make me… *PLOINK*” is the hardest I’ve laughed at a song in a while.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: The chorus makes me hate it: “cuz all you ever do is make me [synthesized water drop].” To be fair, it’s not all that otherwise, either: Cyrus’s voice is nowhere near as distinctive as her sibling’s (or father’s), and Labrinth’s voice isn’t distinctive at all.
[3]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Sure, that teardrop sound is kind of a buzzkill, yet it’s a mild objection in an otherwise strong, cloud-drenched R&B track. The hook is effective in its simplicity — minus that annoying teardrop, of course — but the way they changed the harmonic feel in the bridge is the true highlight. That Bb-F-Fm-C chord progression was such a pleasant surprise.
[6]

Hannah Jocelyn: I listened to the XX’s great new album I See You over the weekend, and the sparseness of “Make Me (Cry)” sounds a lot like that at first — funny how Noah Cyrus and Labrinth trying to go “indie” and the XX going “pop” arrive at the same place. Most of it is at least musically interesting, the bizarre lyrics about Jesus and Muhammad Ali ignorable, even as the teardrop sound effects remind me of Melanie Martinez’s “Soap” and the gated snare is misplaced. But that bridge is where it falls apart in an awful, unintentionally squirm-inducing way, where the emptiness of the song catches up with Cyrus and Labrinth. They try their best to cover up the underproduction — Labrinth’s own making — with dramatic ad-libs (this is the part where I say “Ponyo still loves ham”), but they’re both too weak to save it. While it’s no secret that everyone borrows from the XX now, this song picks the wrong things from their sound — just the empty space and the dual vocalists, without the intimacy and particularity that elevates them beyond most other groups. Even when “Make Me” works, when a sound effect actually jumps out or a line registers, there really is nothing here that Jamie, Romy, and Oliver didn’t do much better on I See You and earlier albums.
[2]

Alfred Soto: Let’s get these truths out of the way: only Miguel can get away with the water drop effect, only Miley Cyrus can get away with singing, and Labrinth misspelled his name.
[1]