The Singles Jukebox

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[7.13]

Brad Shoup: I really really really hope the voicemail is from En Vogue!!!
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: 2002 lives! The purpose-built next-generation Spice Girls Aloud for the Social Media Era have finally matched up with a tune that lets the four of them display their separate vocal personalities (previous Jukebox-covered tunes have relied on one mode or another, to the detriment of others), plus squeezing in a brain-rattling guest spot from Misdemeanor, who gets such a searingly funky middle eight that it’s almost a shame to go back to the nonstop thrill ride of the chorus. Packed with so many hooks that some of them are sticking out sideways, the best thing about it is the celebration of control, power and agency behind an act as simple as letting it go to voicemail.
[10]

David Lee: True, this harks back to the early 00s in the sense that it draws from disco and funk in the same way that Janet Jackson, Samantha Mumba, and Will Smith did in those days. But I also like to think of this as picking up the storyline where “The Call” left off. These ladies have no time for the Backstreet Boys’ pained confessions and tell them that no matter how many pleading, apologetic voicemails the Boys leave, they’ll be left hanging. But enough about trans-decade pop conversations. I’m excited because its verve and swing make it suited for radios playing poolside and out of car windows on bright, eighty-degree days. Too bad Missy’s verse is a throwaway but it doesn’t hurt the ebullience at work here.
[8]

Ian Mathers: A great if incidental example of the rich tradition of people taking bureaucratic/technological insincerity (“leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you, because we value your voice/opinion/time/being”) and snarkily turning it into well deserved, very human aggression instead. But of course I’m burying the lede, a brief, exhilarating dispatch from Missy Elliott that confirms how much she’s missed, if you needed the reminder. The song surrounding it can’t quite live up to her, which is neither a damning indictment nor a surprise.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: This update of a chorus whose cultural impact feels so great that it’s like it’s always existed is so timely and functional — everyone has voicemail these days although nobody wants to leave a message — that it can rest on that and be a pretty decent pop song. It has a little more going for it, such as Missy’s delightful if brief time as a human sound effect, but the verses don’t hit the En Vogue heights of slinky sass or the Destiny’s Child level of bitchy contempt. The girls, while not jumping out personality-wise, are at least in the conversation this time around. It’s a good Little Mix single but I can’t be the only one imagining it as a great potential Cher Lloyd one.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: For the past few singles, Little Mix have registered as little more than four splashy outfits telling me to love myself more. Nothing’s changed here, exactly, except the material, spanning 20 years of sass: nostalgic En Vogue strut, nostalgic Misdemeanor verse, nostalgic phone lady. (What would today’s equivalent even be? Skype?) I’d say the move is smart given the UK’s ’90s-besotten charts, but it’s not like Little Mix’s old stuff wasn’t going No. 1, and “Wings” seems to be the crossover. I’d say it’s worrying that Little Mix are better with fluff than anthems, but it isn’t. (The best Destiny’s Child song is still “Bug a Boo.”) I’d say more, but joy so simple doesn’t need it
[7]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: You got my De La nostalgia on my Missy nostalgia on my telephone conversation nostalgia! As charming as this all is, as grin-inducing as it is to hear Missy make “brrr!” and “hmnnnn!” phone noises, as FUN as “How Ya Doin’” is to listen to, there’s a nagging sense that there should be more. Could it be that we need more attitude from our interchangeable unit? Could we do with some more lyrics, especially after the bridge being repeated verbatim on the second verse? Perhaps less reverence of the source material’s chorus? Is everybody aware they missed the perfect opportunity to throw on a Max B verse?
[7]

Anthony Easton: Well this is just majestic — the telephone sounds, how it returns to the theme, like a techno-fugue of Ballardian import, the passive agressive quality of it, the competing flows — did you miss it if you meant to miss it? The last few seconds of this just rocket the motherfucker to the stratosphere. 
[10]

Jer Fairall: Could have and should have been a Spice Girls single in 1997, which Missy could have also appeared on if only such things had been done then. Either way, she’d still be the best thing about the track by some distance. 
[5]

Will Adams: A Guide on How to Break a UK Girl Group Stateside: 1) Keep the tempo bumping so you don’t get a chance to use your nefarious vibrato; 2) Pull from the 80s, but instead of boshing up your sample, let the strengths of your reference points bolster your song; 3) Add your own hooks, because you can never have too many; 4) add a guest verse from a beloved and missed rapper. “How Ya Doin'” checks boxes 1-4, but misses two other important ones: 5) follow through with your extended metaphors; and 6) avoid overproduction.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: The chorus hasn’t been so much stolen as adapted, the clumsiness of the Curiosity Killed The Cat version having been smoothed off by De La Soul, and their attempt slightly tweaked and repolished to create an economical, concise and precise hook that goes far beyond either previous iteration. In truth it’s the main thing holding this up, Missy successfully forestalling any “phoning it in” jokes but not much more, and The Mix sounding about as defiant as you can while having to brandish a box of Schwarzkopf to help pay for your video – Cameron’s Britain for you, right there.
[7]

Crystal Leww: I’ve listened to this a few times now, and it just doesn’t leave a very lasting impact. The hook is not very hooky, and the girls sound totally inoffensive and pleasant but interchangeable. The change-up of the beat into the Missy verse is very sudden, and the drums help the record scratches sound like they actually belong. Missy sounds at home over this type of song, probably because she was actually around when it was cool to sound like this.
[5]

Sabina Tang: Here’s a musique concrète replacement for Andy McClusky’s typewriter and my dial-up modem — the cell phone! Or, er, voice mail, which is approaching its expiry date (the avant-garde tech crowd thing is not to have it). Little Mix, too, never actually check their voice mailbox: it serves solely as a transitive barrier, to test if importunate suitors are clued-in enough to give up, or if the further steps of number change and Facebook ban are required. Both the music and Missy hearken to a time when the technology was actually in use — the former vigorously, the latter innocuously.     
[7]

Alfred Soto: Of course it’s nostalgic. Nobody leaves messages anymore. It alludes to a Seinfeld episode I haven’t seen but about which I’ve heard a fair bit over the years involving George Constanza and an answering machine. Finally, it alludes to De La Soul’s fab “Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey).” This combination plus a game Missy don’t make a great record but it’s an exuberant one.
[6]

Josh Langhoff: This has been my answering machine jam since ‘01, and when I say “this,” read, “me interpolating De La Soul in a monotone while banging on the counter.” One fruitful take featured my wife screaming over the final “you,” “It Takes Two”-style, but then we suffered a power outage and lost it. Nobody who calls me listens to De La (or, you know, Curiosity Killed the Cat, big surprise), but everyone likes the message anyway and now they’ll think I’m friends with Little Mix. Which would be OK! Perrie (verse two) could yet display the vocal charisma of Scherzinger doing “Buttons,” and they all have boundless energy and seem to live together in a Glamour castoff closet. Good taste in sound effects, too — for our next take, I may ask my wife to shatter a vase over my head.
[8]