The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Erik Hassle – Hurtful

Swedish boy sorry he misleaded you…



[Video][Myspace]
[6.45]

Jessica Popper: I’m not sure if I can review this song and still retain the image of sanity, because I love Erik Hassle ridiculously much. “Hurtful” is great, but it was his album as a whole which single-handedly restored my faith in new pop music when I heard it for the first time about a month ago. More than once I have been so happy to have discovered him that I have almost cried when listening to it, although Erik’s ability to convey emotion certainly also contributed. I’m sure some of you will hate it, as is the way with all the best things, but I know Erik is going to touch a lot of people over the next year, as he becomes one of Sweden’s biggest musical exports.
[10]

Tom Ewing: On this showing, Erik Hassle was born too late. 20, even 10, years ago, he’d have taken this wind machine ballad and passed it on to T’Pau or Stevie Nicks or even — dream big, Erik! — Bryan Adams. And, though nobody writing about it would have admitted as much, it would have totally rocked. But sadly, in an imploding industry, you have to sing your big ballads yourself, and you have to make them sound a little cute and wistful, a little like demos. Now, Erik will get more acclaim doing it this way, and he’s an artist, it would never have been about the girls and the hair anyhow. But there’s a monster in this song that’s woken up into a world too small for it, and in a way that’s sad.
[9]

Rodney J. Greene: The chipper mellotron bubbles that start this out are a misdirection. Once the craggily earnest vocals and clean, chiming guitars follow, it makes for a good the Fray song, but a Fray song nonetheless.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: A good little song whose economy might be its only weak spot — it’s short, and mercifully so, but the emotional peak that’s suggested by the verses and the build up in the chorus doesn’t come. “What I did.. was hurtful” is a bit of an anticlimactic letdown. Of course, it must be reiterated that Erik is as good as five boy-band members at once — this is some expertly earnest emoting — but where it should be dramatic, huge and weepy it ebbs short of being a classic.
[7]

Andrew Brennan: If Erik Hassle cheated on me, this song wouldn’t be enough to get me back. It sounds a little bit like Good Morning Revival-era Good Charlotte (which is a good thing), but it remains relatively inoffensive whiny male pop and nothing more.
[6]

David Raposa: If you’re claiming that “what I did to you was” or “what I’m going through is” hurtful,” and doing it through an AutoTune filter to boot, do you really think that’ll fly with the ready-for-takeoff music from Top Gun playing in the background? Given this is (and I’m going out on a limb here) a song of contrition, it might behoove the music, which is totally A-plus-OK in a post-“Since You’ve Been Gone” way, to show some solidarity with the words it’s accompanying. Though I could be wrong in thinking that this presumptive MISSION ACCOMPLISHED tack won’t work. If someone out there could intentionally forget a birthday or anniversary, offer a mea culpa b/w the Chariots of Fire soundtrack, and report the results back to me, it’d be appreciated.
[6]

Alex Macpherson: On the one hand, it’s refreshing to hear a Swedish artist who isn’t dealing in cutesy, twee electropop. On the other, Hassle’s voice doesn’t have quite the necessary grandeur to pull off a sweeping musical number like this, and his lyrics are unbelievably trite.
[5]

Hillary Brown: Kind of scaled back for Swede pop, in that, while it’s big and emotional, it’s not winky winky or musically crazy but more a straightforward soul-baring kind of thing, which should make it good for a therapy mix-tape but means it’s less so for fostering bouncy spring feelings.
[6]

Additional Scores

Hazel Robinson : [5]
Martin Skidmore: [4]
Keane Tzong: [7]

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