The Singles Jukebox

Crow? Mag? Non! (literally the best caption I could come up with, sorry)…

[Video][Website]
[6.50]

Martin Skidmore: A tribute to Michael Jackson, sung with some warmth and throaty force, though I dislike her weird tone on the end “you”s. The music is bright pop, with drums resembling a military tattoo. I’m still not entirely connecting with her, somehow, and I can’t tell if I am going to or not, though I’m still quite impressed by her voice.
[6]

Josh Langhoff: A Michael Jackson tribute that proves the opening couplet from Disco Inferno’s “Last Dance”: “Every step that we tread, the dead are behind us / Throwing shadows out over our heads, and they live far in front of us.” Maguire’s pretty young, even if she does sound like Annie Lennox in recital, so she’s probably gonna be saving that dance a LONG time. Anyway, as an MJ tribute it pails in comparison to “Viva la Vida”.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Classic disco banger, so perfect in its retro purity that I am shocked they make things so pure and so joyful anymore.
[9]

Jer Fairall: Nearly identical to Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers” in both genre affectation and emotional pitch, but this tries nowhere near as hard to be cool, trading evasive quirk for melodic forthrightness and a rich pop shimmer. If I am left wishing that it all added up to something a little more lyrically interesting, Maguire nevertheless gets credit for recognizing the weight of the titular reference, specifically for how she, just like Donna Summer before her, understands how the words “last dance” evoke melancholy just as readily as they do celebration.
[7]

Alfred Soto: “A muscular drag queen giving great Stevie Nicks in a Soho cocktail joint,” avers a review on the artist’s Wikipedia page. But Nicks was rarely this pompous — cocaine and cowboys were her thing, not synth strings and operatic pretensions. Finally, if you didn’t save the last dance for Nicks, she’d dance her own twirl, thanks.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: After too many dance songs, when every beat hollows itself out as it hits and the minute hand sputters toward the 11, a second of silence tips you off before the ballad even swoops into the speakers (my memory always slots in Christina’s “I Turn to You”, but it slots in falling rain as well, and I don’t think I’d ever attended a dance in an open-air gymnasium). The air stills and the people, as if guided by something outside themselves, slip into pairs. But there’s a moment before, and it’s a lot like this: all sound receding until you swear it’s the strobe lights you hear breathing, all sights receding except dust twirling above the floor and nothing left do but stride toward it and whomever you need to trust is waiting, unguided. It isn’t quite desire — the room’s far too pristine for that. Even kissing has to be sublimated into kissing a crown in supplication, even terms of affection blanched into terms of friendship. It’s all an act, of course; it’s got to be the ’80s shimmer-via-pistons production, or maybe the “Crazy For You” dips in Clare’s voice. I don’t even know whether the last dance is even a thing anymore, whether The Kids have abandoned it for slap bracelets or rainbow parties or whatever they’re supposedly doing right this second. It’d be a shame; there are seconds in one’s life that’ll matter more, but most won’t feel like this. At least someone’s still writing songs for them.
[7]