The Singles Jukebox

Fourfourfour…

[Video]
[4.44]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: For a generic club pop banger it’s strangely devoid of hooks — it does the whole icy, reserved verse thing without opening out onto the kind of big chorus that you’d expect as a release of tension. Instead there’s just a slight pulse, a light intensification with no particular direction.
[4]

Dorian Sinclair: Most of “Rampampam” is perfectly serviceable, but familiar. I like the pulse of the bass and drum, I enjoy the minor-key synth stabs, but I’ve heard them many times before and will hear them many times in future. That opening, though, where she bubbles ominously up out of the depths of the mix, is genuinely interesting. Even as the rest of the song fades from my memory, I’ll be thinking about that little trick for a while.
[6]

Ian Mathers: Not terribly distinctive but not unpleasant; the biggest disappointment is probably, upon hearing how she’s using the title, in realizing that I can’t even say it’s changed how I hear “The Little Drummer Boy” because I’ve already heard “Careful (Click, Click)“.
[6]

Will Adams: Does this count as me already losing the Little Drummer Boy Challenge?
[5]

Alfred Soto: I can hear traces of Katy B’s playful pop-house in the onomatopoetic hook. The bass does bump-bump. 
[6]

Juana Giaimo: Hearing this kind of bland generic tracks makes me miss f(x) even more. 
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: Minelli’s airy, floating voice stays out of the skipping percussion and muddy bass before the flat drums and dull bass kick in, with Minelli ghostly floating over it, an annoyed but thoughtful tone within her voice, simply pacing through the motions until the swampy synths under the bridge crash against it. Minelli floats above it, watching it wash away.
[4]

Oliver Maier: Minelli is trying to exude litheness, but it’s hard when she’s using about 5 or 6 notes and everything happening under her is total muck. “Rampampam” goes through the motions of tension and release without interest. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
[3]

Rachel Saywitz: The bass-heavy bounce & percussive pounding of “Rampampam”‘s hook bodes well for short form, as TikTok would have it. But in context with the rest of the track, it does nothing to uplift Minelli’s manufactured gloom, only drags it down more. “My soul is hollow,” Minelli’s vocal deadpans in the start of the bridge. We understand, maybe too well.
[3]