The Singles Jukebox

Dirty Projector makes her debut…

[Video][Website]
[5.17]

Katherine St Asaph: On the scale of retro ballads from artists you wouldn’t expect them from, this is no “Love on the Brain,” definitely no “Creampuff.”
[4]

A.J. Cohn: I’ll admit to being a sucker for just this sort of thing — self-empowerment jams for depressive types, and there are really so many things I love about this song: the pretty, poignant vocals, the nearly weightless arrangement, the touching faith in the power of singing and story-telling to heal — but even I find the almost six-minute length wearying.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: To be doing doo-wop in 2016 implies pastiche, and that’s OK. There’s a lot of fun to be had within these bounds. But Amber Coffman is a tough proposition for me. Her kinda-R&B song “Stillness is the Move,” for instance, was an enjoyable extra-genre sojourn that in the hands of Solange was nudged into more traditional if, curiously, not necessarily more enjoyable territory. (Hint number one that Coffman’s perversions have purpose.) “All to Myself” meets my resistance: I think Coffman’s voice pushes against its melodies, setting itself needlessly at odds with them. What a doo-wop song might sound like in the 21st century isn’t merely theoretical: Garbage did it with “Can’t Cry These Tears”; Ariana Grande did it with “Tattooed Heart.” Both of those are more formally rigorous than Coffman’s, and, not coincidentally, are better. But that doesn’t mean the muddy contemporizings of indie rock are without merit: as an example, I’d point to Mirah’s absolute wonderful girl group reimagining “Don’t.” That song reconfigured orchestral studio-pop into lo-fi winsomeness in an organic way: the translation was by necessity and attained worth through the same. Coffman, I feel, hangs outside the expected course of her song’s direction for little more than deliberate obtuseness. It feels like hard work for the sake of it.
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: It’s a moving story that writes itself: musician turns her lack of inspiration as inspiration to  get her mind working again. As a first single, though, it feels  exactly as the process she sings about. Her words pour out directly on paper, but it sticks so literal, it starts to sound too twee. As much it winds around the ears, the backing croak can’t quite save the rough draft.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Like if “A Whiter Shade of Pale” were arranged by Imogen Heap, and quite lovely, but it’s also bloated length-wise, and Coffman’s tale buries itself like she buries her own voice in layers of itself. What should have been inspiring instead feels impenetrable.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The insistent background vocals bear the impress of Amber Coffman’s former band Dirty Projectors, and when she joins them for harmonies “All to Myself” undercuts its title with the gentlest irony. Five minutes, though!
[6]