The Singles Jukebox

The Singles Jukebox is starting a Kickstarter! For just $50, you can get this photo tattooed on the body part not pictured and bask in the knowledge that you are contributing, in some small, inked way, to the future of music…

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[3.86]

Jonathan Bogart: One of the most insufferable nerd-bait musicians of the past decade remains so.
[3]

Iain Mew: The Dresden Dolls’ Yes, Virginia still stands up as one of my favourite albums of the last decade, an urgent, funny and extravagant blast through some of the darker recesses of life that comes across as effortlessly insightful. Who Killed Amanda Palmer was very good too. In the long four years since then, Amanda Palmer has slowly turned away from placing much emphasis on music and toward fostering a personality cult, as well as doing some outright awful things (Evelyn Evelyn). Now she’s finally releasing a new album and it’s heralded by… competent but unspectacular piano pop, like a barely more rock Ben Folds. There’s something a little perverse about someone striking out for artistic freedom away from the major labels and then releasing the least challenging work of their career. Good for her for making a video that people like, but I preferred it when the nakedness was in her music.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Musicians! Is your small-but-devoted group of friends and fans not independently wealthy enough to sponsor your next CD pressing? You just need to try more — you know, have years of prior experience on a major label, flounce away from that major label, make a big deal about painting your boobs and tweeting on weekends, release some OK-to-decent albums (optional) and marry Neil Gaiman’s 1,744,031 followers, and you too can make millions of dollars off your diminishing returns! Even the orchestra is self-satisfied.
[4]

Anthony Easton: Does anyone have any bleeding idea what this song is about? I mean, it could be used for a hipster Jesus abstinence campaign in Wichita or something, but that can’t be what she’s going for, can it? 
[5]

Brad Shoup: Well, it takes a fair amount of chutzpah to stack the words “hamfist” and “Nazis” in adjoining lines. The track itself sounds like a half-assed alt-rock rehearsal exercise on “Video Killed the Radio Star”: still oddly precious, given the force involved. I hear Palmer chuckling in two different instances: if she doesn’t care how psychically oppressive this song is, that’s my cue to leave.
[1]

Alfred Soto: To complain about the affected vocals strikes me as beside the point but not to complain about the crowded mix is impossible. And why the nod to “Video Killed the Radio Star”?
[3]

Jer Fairall: That voice is still furious and agitated in a way that recalls the sense of danger and hysteria that made such early Dresden Dolls highlights like “Girl Anachronism” and “Coin-Operated Boy” initially so exciting, and the disconnect this creates upon clashing against her sprightly, tuneful piano playing, like a kindergarten teacher leading a classroom through a nursery rhyme singalong, still registers as unshakeably sinister. But she’s become something like the Cabaret punk version of a punchline rapper, foregoing the world of shock treatments and hermaphroditic prostitutes for lyrical barbs of undeniable wit (“just like the song / we’re addicted to the L word” never fails to make me smile each time through) but zero staying power.
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