So that’s two for Perry, two for Sia, two for Sparks…

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Josh Langhoff: During senior English we wrote mythological pop culture references on yellow slips of paper and hung them on the classroom wall until they encircled the room, a construction paper Oceanus, and I got hipster points for PJ Harvey’s line, “Even Aphrodite, she got nothin’ on me.” If the seniors at Warrenton High School are still subject to this assignment, they might should look up Molly Sandén’s song about how she’s a flaming bird. Sandén sounds a little like Sia, though without Sia’s fascinating breaks on the high notes, and her phoenix song is a real educational primer. I’d also like to assure these seniors that if they’ve ever been arrested for exploding Works bombs at the abandoned outlet mall, their problem wasn’t that they “flew too close to the sun.”
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Anthony Easton: Wouldn’t a phoenix have to rise for the metaphor to work? 
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Katherine St Asaph: According to Google, multiple video games involve exploding phoenixes. They’re probably way more fun and thought-out than this song.
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Micha Cavaseno: Rushes through every lyrical cliche in the world in an attempt to give this slightly-too-fidgety Jordin Sparks song an “edge.” Even the breakdown with its synth flashes and AMPED-UP DRUMS just falls flat and crumples.
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Alfred Soto: Like a phoenix she’ll rise again in the form of Katy Perry.
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Will Adams: She’s gonna live like “Chandelier” doesn’t exist. Like it doesn’t exist!
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Mo Kim: This time last year, I had “Chandelier” on repeat as I walked on Seoul sidewalks, fists jammed into coat pockets. It goes without saying that it’s an incredibly catchy song, but the detail that always got me to hit Play again was its ending: a held breath, the hope of somebody still holding on, if only for tonight. “Phoenix” reminds me of its older sister in many ways: it has the binary between sparse verses and explosive choruses; the fatalistic bent of lyrics like “Gotta die to stay alive”; and a knockout vocal performance from Sandén, who evokes Sia’s acrobatics in the best way. Where “Chandelier” left us on a cliffhanger, though, “Phoenix” wants to do more than hang on: it wants to fly, and it’ll fall again and again trying knowing that one day it won’t. Turns out, a lot can change in just one year.
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Iain Mew: This is improved by hearing it as a fiery destruction job on “Dark Horse”, but I’m charmed regardless by its crushing enormity and how it manifests this through a lot of small but loud details as well as the big ones — things like the “hit. hit. hit.” backing vocals and the drunken tumble of drums at the beginning.
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Scott Mildenhall: With Sweden currently faced with a choice between “Return To Innocence (Part II)” and a second-string Saade effort for Eurovision, they may — nay, should — regret not being able to entice Molly Sandén to offer them this. It’s all explosion under penalty of implosion, an obvious choice between crumbling resigned to death or a valiant, gallant commitment to it, a willing self-destruction. She “didn’t sign up for this war”, but knows this is the battlefield. Bursting with wobbly emotion, she quavers at full throttle. Captivatingly overwrought, though how wrought is too much when life necessitates death is debatable.
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