The Singles Jukebox

Blue skies, broken hearts… next 12 exits…

[Video]
[6.29]

Jonathan Bogart: Look, I’m clearly biased: I moved thousands of miles across the country to get away from where the sky is blue forever. But I’m still a goddamn sucker for Diplo’s sonic layering.
[6]

Anthony Easton: This is how you insert a Diplo production: the ironic gravitas of a perfect dance beat in the midst of a hysterical fall apart love song.
[7]

Iain Mew: Not since Gold Panda have I known such a strong combination of “I enjoy listening to this song” and “I can’t remember any specifics when it finishes”, and “XXX 88” has words and everything! I think it’s because the pleasure is all from listening to MØ’s expressive voice, above what she’s singing with it. The secret of the song is that it works as a vehicle accordingly.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Every ten seconds an element tugs at the ear: submerged background vocals, organ fills, a horn chart recalling Timbaland as much as TV on the Radio. The vocal is the pivot point: as mysterious as a fog horn, as evocative as the memory of an ex.
[7]

Josh Langhoff: Hey buddy, is MØ like a lounge singer? She sounds woozy. The synths sound woozy. But wooze is just a decoy to distract us from the rote businesslike four-chorder about a bunch of people moving to Arizona, I think. During the chorus things perk up with horns and skitters and an extra chord, proving that she who woos with wooze will not lose me to snooze if she’ll choose to peruse other hues of synth cues.
[4]

Brad Shoup: I assume this song was cut because someone had to cut it. Everything’s loose in its socket, from the afterthought horns to MØ’s curdled mumble and stream-of-boredom talk about hearts of gold and blue skies.
[3]

Cédric Le Merrer: Sometimes it appears the “Nuke The Cat” screenwriting syndrome has also touched a lot of songwriters and producers. Their songs have to be bigger, to reach ever higher heigths of epic epicness. After beautifully avoiding epic epicness on “Climax,” working with MØ, Diplo has found someone who knows an oblique way to reach those crowded heights. The wonderful vocal performance is obviously the main anchor: MØ packs so much pathos in her “buddy don’t you cry” that Diplo has to do is making sure the horns sound huge enough on the pre-chorus. This ends up being the kind of songs where mountains are leaped repeatedly, but the feels are never less intimate for it. And oh, are those feels many!
[10]