The Singles Jukebox

An adequate description…

[Video]
[2.50]

Alfred Soto: Insisting on weaknesses with immersive synths — stop being so damn pushy.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Take the worst elements of Twenty One Pilots, EDM-pop, and Magic!, fold them together but make sure you leave a lot of lumps, and you have this shit casserole. 
[1]

Hannah Jocelyn: Sleepaway camp pop, the kind of loud, ‘alternative’, yet still saccharine music that came from kids blasting their iPods in the bunk. (See also: 3!0H3, “Can’t Be Tamed”-era Miley, pop-era Cobra Starship, etc.) The opening line of “no thank you” makes me want to snarkily repeat it back, because when you’re in middle school you find that sort of thing cutting-edge humor. The “boy-oh-boy” chant and oowaahhhhyeeyaaahh makes me want to sit with a friend on the side and lament that whoever was DJing didn’t play ‘real’ music, which back then meant Mumford and Sons, but still. The key change is just ear-piercing.
[3]

Will Adams: Pop quiz! Which is the biggest self-own? A) wailing “I’M WEAK” and making that your chorus; B) recreating “Never Be Like You” with Casio-quality synth brass; C) that horrifying key change; or D) all of the above.
[1]

Cassy Gress: “Weak” starts with “No thank you,” followed by a pause, and the slight tic at the end of “no” incites dread in my brain, like water pooling under a door. Then, “I should have been in bed, but,” he mutters as an aside, and my eye twitches. “One sip (bad for me), one hit (bad for me)”, and now I’m thinking of “mi fa volare“, which is much less grating. By the time we get into the chorus, where he’s more or less punching the air going “hell yeah, I’m weak!” I’m ready to dump him, and this song, but especially him, into the trash pile. Fuck, it’s still playing, WHY IS THERE A KEY MODULATION. WHY DOES HE KEEP SAYING “NO THANK YOU” LIKE IT’S CHARMING.
[0]

Scott Mildenhall: With the most audacious key change since the French tried to scrap AZERTY, this must be at least Thirty One Pilots, if not more. Shimmering close to “Love In This Club”, it joins the dots between Taio Cruz-core, the celebratory fatalism that that precipitated, and the celebratory defeatism that this revels in. Unsuccessful guest slot in the Louisa Johnson Establishment Efforts incidental; this sounds like a valuable anthem.
[7]