The Singles Jukebox

Way to make us feel old, Alessia; you were -3 when “Glory Box” was released.

[Video][Website]
[7.11]

Katherine St Asaph: Alessia Cara, like Lorde before her, is being embraced as alternative teenpop by people who may not actually listen to the music they dismiss. Akin to “Royals,” “Here” is more about pop than parties; the music she doesn’t listen to (as opposed to “music with a message,” a dully sanctimonious turn of phrase) receives more disdainful lyrics than any individual party teen. As it stands, teenpop about teen ennui has a long history — most recently the cluster in the mid-00s with Katy Rose and Shut Up Stella — and generally doesn’t dismiss large swaths of its peers as vapid. As sympathetic as I am to hating parties, and teenage superiority complexes, and even to nerding out over trip-hop as a junior, form matches subject matter. As in: given the sample, I ask myself what am I doing not just listening to “Glory Box” instead.
[5]

Iain Mew: I often didn’t chose very original choices of music for my teenage sulks either; it didn’t make them any less satisfying.
[7]

Alfred Soto: While Lorde records a new album, this comer will try to fill the voice with all the mystery an oversampled Portishead lick can provide. Bedsit pop with attitude — she doesn’t even much like the boy next to her. Refreshing, I say.
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: Petulant, defensive and insecure in all the best ways. Alessia’s flinty and kind of a bitch all over the track, both self-aware yet still disinterested in compromise. You imagine that the party must be a complete moodkill with her around if you try and drag her in, and that sort of fierceness is a great way to make your way into the game, the Isaac Hayes sample and her soulful self-indulgence the aura of a brat who knows what she wants and gets what she wants. If you’re trying to do the same and its not in accordance to her wishes then well, like many a trampled force has told you with their remains, it can suck. But as long as its not you on the receiving end, its quite intriguing to watch.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Hey, if I was at a party playing Portishead, I’d be grouchy too. She sings about music with a message — which, ugh — but she’s making music with some mileage, fleeing from this room to that. Even with the beanie drawn down, she sizes everyone up wickedly well, as Pop & Oak hang Ike’s rap over her like an oppressive dark-orange sky.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Once you hit a certain age, this kind of song, this kind of mood, and this kind of delivery would just become impossible to recreate. And you probably wouldn’t want to be singing this sort of thing at 28. But I’m glad Cara’s got it out of her system and into my speakers.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: The influence of Tinashe — and the sadly underheralded Melanie Fiona — continues on this smoldering slab of Isaac Hayes-sampling (but you may hear it as a Portishead sample) R&B that’s getting words like “antisocial pessimist” on the radio. Cara sounds both young and wise, and I wanna hear more from her.
[7]

Ramzi Awn: Seldom does a song like “Here” come along. Cara pays homage to the soul of Jhene Aiko, Robyn’s grit and Tinashe’s whip-smarts, but sets herself apart from the pack. The hook burns slow and tender, allowing Cara to repeat herself, and breathe.
[9]

Crystal Leww: I went back to my college town a few weeks ago to try to see Miguel play a show on the lake shore, and it was raining and cold and windy the whole damn time. They ended up canceling the show because the wind made conditions unsafe, and I remember listening to “Here” on the ride back and feeling like it was basically how I felt about college: being too drunk and falling for the wrong boys and listening to privileged white girls talk shit when they had nothing to complain about in their lives and seeing people get too high and standing in a corner clutching a warm PBR and being disappointed when I did go out. There are lots of songs about shitty parties and feeling like you don’t belong at those shitty parties and feeling like you are already too old to go to those shitty parties and a lot of them are good, but Alessia Cara does a really nice job capturing that feeling in a way that makes sense.
[9]