The Singles Jukebox

My heart: brb in 3 months, k bye

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Katie Gill: For a song about taking a break from romance, being single and not being tied down, this is an amazingly sad sounding song. The lyrics suggest that it should be something brighter and punchy but the music is pure “Need You Now” sadness & melodrama. It never strikes the balance. Either the music needs to be brighter or the lyrics need to be sadder but the juxtaposition is wonky as hell.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Hooks have never been Lady A’s problem; writing songs equal to “Need You Now” has been. When they concentrate, they write songs as capable as, say, Little River Band’s (which, for all I know, they’d take as a compliment). “Heart Break” depends on Hillary Scott’s pause in the chorus hook, but so much else depends on Charles Kelley’s harmonies, not much in evidence.
[5]

Julian Baldsing: Maybe I just don’t get around enough, but Lady Antebellum’s play on the word “heartbreak” was, to me, a quite brilliant twist that I’d never seen or heard before — in that exact form, at least. The line “I think it’s time to take a heart…break” is the sort of sweet and sour candy that makes your taste buds tingle, and I have an endless supply of love for any song that can take something familiar and find a new way to present it, no matter on what scale. Unfortunately, the rest of the song spends its time reeling off a list of late-to-the-party, sorta-kinda-feminist realisations that would seem more natural on Shania Twain’s Up! over any release in the year 2017. It’s sweet, but ultimately tiresome — and it makes “Heart Break” feel less like an epiphanic voice and more like a high school friend cluttering your Facebook feed with their favourite ripped-from-Pinterest quotes.
[5]

Stephen Eisermann: An interesting concept held back by a weak second verse and vocal turn: Hillary Scott is one of the least compelling vocalists in mainstream country and this song needed a more confident turn to really sell the lyrics. It’s a shame, too, because the song would’ve been one of my favorite pop-country tracks of the year had it been performed properly.
[6]

Will Adams: Demi Lovato handled this wordplay better, and with a stronger chorus to boot. The lasting impression of “Heart Break” is wondering if the trope of the distorted vocal hook is really going to weasel its way into every single genre.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: “I’m putting on a poker face,” Hillary Scott sings, as she blows the song’s subtext up for everyone to read. As a song of self-delusion, of a single person telling everyone it’s by choice even as the corners of their mouth droop in a frown, it is unimpeachable, though the gloss and shine of the music feels slightly too slick to make me feel it like Scott does. Point deducted for the “feeling like a queen in the California king I’m in.”
[7]