The Singles Jukebox

Perhaps he just heard Flo’s verse…?

[Video][Website]
[3.73]

Kat Stevens: You get the feeling that at some point Olly Murs and Robbie Williams will merge into a single gestalt entity resembling a Lambeth-walking, nasally-talking pork pie hat. The hat will make cheeky side-eye quips to the camera while being interviewed by Cat Deeley. The hat’s ever-increasing density of tweed will sustain an entire Hebridian island community. The hat will be ousted from the Womanizing Circuit for spilling Dean Gaffney’s pint, then claim it was ‘all just a bit of a laugh anyway’. Finally, one day, the world will wake up and Adam from Maroon 5 will have been fully absorbed into the hat’s inner lining, doomed for eternity to churn out cheery piano bangers on the hat’s behalf. It’s understandable that perennial runner-up Olly is pursuing this monstrous goal rather than spend a quiet life in musical theatre like Our Joar (who ironically got to Robbie first!), but it doesn’t make his emerging beer gut any easier to stomach.
[3]

Ian Mathers: I wish I hadn’t seen the video, because now all I can think is “so she’s a troublemaker because she thought that guy slapping her ass was unacceptable? And you got her fired from at least one of her jobs by showing up and startling her. And while music videos have a long tradition of the singer following their love interest around, the increased focus on her variable reactions makes you seem pretty stalker-y.” The song lacks these kinds of problems, but that’s because it’s so fucking bland.
[4]

Iain Mew: “This Love” wasn’t even that amazing when it didn’t feature Flo Rida or Olly Murs.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Created for those of us who pine for the Maroon 5 that recorded “Makes Me Wonder” and “This Love” and wonder whether Adam Levine could be said to have inspired a generation of post-grungers to strum rhythm licks. 
[5]

Will Adams: The one-two punch of “Payphone” and “One More Night” ravaging airwaves for the majority of 2012 had me desperate for the days before Adam Levine discovered Pro Tools’ drum machines. “Troublemaker” wins brownie points on this basis alone. It’s far from perfect, though; remixing “Misery” with disco strings isn’t going to get me to dance. Adding an astonishingly superfluous Flo Rida verse won’t do it, either.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: Google tells me Adam Levine has never done anything with Flo Rida, so I guess they had to call in his English equivalent.  They also brought up a pleasant disco swing, which helps make this a bit better than it should be based on who is involved. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: It’s not even the best song called “Trouble Maker” that apes Maroon 5.
[4]

Alex Ostroff: The appeal of Maroon 5’s best singles wasn’t (only) the diluted synth funk – a lot of it was the sleaze and thinly-veiled menace of Adam Levine’s delivery. His musical identity on “Makes Me Wonder” and “Wake Up Call” and “Little of Your Time” and “This Love” was loathsome and misogynist, but he committed to it utterly and mined it for musical gold. This, more than anything else, was his move like Jagger. Olly Murs is too bland and the song too vague for me to feel repulsed or ambivalent or anything, really. Points for the disco strings, really.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Goes Trouble Maker one better by adding “putty” to the pile of stale referents. Murs straining in his upper register is almost poignant; so is the thought of the poor soul clunking the cowbell in the corner. Also: I’m calling a moratorium on that one definition of insanity. Jesus.
[3]

Anthony Easton: Even though they have the swampy state in common, I was not expecting Flo Rida in the sweet vocal harmonies of Lou Pearlman-era ‘NSync.
[4]

Andy Hutchins: I really enjoyed S Club 7 tunes back in the day, but they weren’t passed through mid-period Maroon 5 and a blandifier, and didn’t have Flo Rida doing something other than rapping over a revived sample.
[2]