The Singles Jukebox

Continuing our “artists that rhyme with ‘Coldplay’ day”…

[Video][Website]
[5.33]

Will Adams: Andra Day and Ellie Goulding’s Grammy mash-up of their equally drippy songs was successful despite the source material. Unlike “Love Me Like You Do,” “Rise Up” is even more of a slog in recorded form, wasting Day’s vocal on glacial crescendo and insipid inspire-isms.
[3]

Cassy Gress: Ergghgh. I don’t want to like this!  The cynic in me is outright rejecting this because it’s called “Rise Up” and is predictably a bit aphorismy, and because she might be substituting glottal squeaking for emotion, and because she slurs her way through a lot of the consonants to the point of near-incoherentness at times, and because I don’t like how sharp/loud some of those gospely background vocals are (okay, that one’s legit, not just cynicism).  But there’s a point at around 2:45 where the backing vocals repeated “we will rise, we will rise”, while rising, and there were some strings faintly coming in, and then at 3:30 we get chimes and… a piccolo?  And I’m finding myself pretty impressed with her vocal control, just her ability to land spot on the note she meant to land on, and dammit.  This song is sweeping me away while I’m kicking and screaming about it.
[6]

Alfred Soto: She’s got a voice pure enough to give pleonasms the shakes, scare the shit out of basic piano parts, and keep away good songs.
[3]

Brad Shoup: “I rise up/Ah, like the waves/I rise up/In spite of the ache/I rise up/And I’d do it a thousand times again” is a nice lyric if you want to see this as a parent’s song. Mostly, though, it’s Day’s song, with nought but gentle piano and prodding backing vocals. It’s a lot, but once in a while I bet it’s enough.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: It’s a testament to Andra Day’s skill that she sounds like she almost believes, and so almost makes me believe, that this mass of reheated cliches has some kind of meaning. If the writing and the Meaningful Piano were mere demerits against the goodwill her voice makes me feel, when it puts bell sounds over the end, I don’t want to rise up, I want to give up.
[4]

Ramzi Awn: It’s all I can do not to push stop on this song, but today in New York, Andra Day’s raw talent pays tribute to everyone who’s ever struggled, and we are grateful for it.
[9]