The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Annie – Back Together

Because there’s no way we’re silent on an Annie / Richard X EP…


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Alfred Soto: Now that ’80s nostalgia looks like a spent force, it’s time to give early ’90s house-pop a second look. Annie, who never had much personality and didn’t seem particularly interested in shopping for one, channels Cathy Dennis singing over a Saint Etienne track. Anonymity has rarely sounded this urgent.
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Edward Okulicz: It’s a step removed from the great ’90s pop house records it emulates, possibly because its audience contains a bunch of people who only know the first-generation pastiches. This is no bad thing, but it still is authentic enough to call to mind K-Klass and their ilk. Annie can be arch when she puts an asterisk next to her own brand of pop, but Little Boots (who wrote it) has always shown a genuine appreciation of the form. As such, the song is strongly written enough that Annie’s soft-sung performance is sweet without a trace of irony.
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Patrick St. Michel: Effortlessly catchy, the sounds of the past sounding very urgent.
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Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Annie — all wise-owl optimism, her heart devoted to the beat — gives us a song worthy of gentle teenage swaying, or the closing theme to an anime that sadly doesn’t exist yet. Both are pretty good aims when writing a pop song. (Play this over the credits to Puella Magi Madoka Magica to get the desired effect.)
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Katherine St Asaph: The problem with most It Gets Better songs is it’s too easy to hear their motives behind the altruism: to invest in your self-esteem, monetize your salvation. All songs do that, perhaps; but while “Back Together” is a triumph of pop and pastiche, more than that it’s a triumph of sincerity. Annie sings nothing but comfort: “don’t give up,” “don’t believe it won’t ever change,” “you’re not alone,” swaddled by Richard X in production like warm blankets. Beneath are little piano chords to tap the locks on your heart. The chorus arrives fast. The ’90s nostalgia doesn’t even sound trendy; it pours into the message like bubbles into a bath. It’s enough to make a cynic into a true believer, lulled by the sound. (And speaking of cynicism: if Little Boots was a tenth as calculating as anyone accused her of, she’d have kept this for Nocturnes.)
[8]

Iain Mew: I don’t know how the songwriting process was divided up, but “Back Together” sounds just like a Nocturnes track taken away from the dancefloor. The sweetness of Annie’s vocals and the synth bleeps suits its lighter feel, and while it’s even more fleeting and lacking in memory-sticking hooks than most of Nocturnes, another whole album exploring this mood would be an appealing prospect.
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Brad Shoup: Like a close-up of some machine from Koyaanisqatsi: I’m not quite sure what it does, but it’s great fun to watch it operate.
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Anthony Easton: There is too much going on, too much of an attempt to make epic small and heavily-localized skills.
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Jonathan Bogart: I do remember the ’90s, yes. Not these ’90s, exactly, although these 90s hung around the corners of my consciousness, something I scrolled past to get to the radio stations I wanted to hear or walked past to get to the mall stores I wanted to shop in. But maybe the best thing about having had a youth that was long enough ago to be an object of generational nostalgia is immersing myself in other peoples’ nostalgia.
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