The Singles Jukebox

We’re not sticking around, that’s for sure…

[Video][Website]
[3.62]

Alfred Soto: Perfunctory, meet cynical.
[1]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Completely normal, acceptable, regular background music at your local Forever 21 or H&M. The muzak of 2017? Only time will tell.
[4]

Anthony Easton: One day I will be confident enough in my abilities to pull off a pop career without any real notices of success, which means I will get to work with producers who have settled on a sound and don’t mind that my generic vocals do nothing to advance or subtract from the cause. 
[2]

Ashley John: I’ve become more sympathetic to Rita Ora’s brute force method of manifesting a career for herself out of nothing, but in this one I can’t even sort out what is her voice between the barrage of cymbals and synths. The contrast of the lonely lyrics against every sound ever crammed into one song could’ve been something poetic if not for the aimless chaos it creates. 
[4]

Alex Clifton: Easy to listen to but thoroughly boring; it’s difficult to remember any lines save for “let’s be lonely together” once the song finishes playing. Rita Ora sounds okay with Avicii’s beat, but her voice gets washed out by the production after a while. I’d be less bored if it were 2013, but in 2017 this sounds like every other EDM song I’ve heard.
[3]

Will Adams: Is it “let’s be lonely together” or “a little less lonely together?” The song can’t decide, so it leaves in both treatments of the title. The nuances between the two sentiments are prominent enough to water down an otherwise serviceable piece of downcast dancepop, as if the over-production on Rita Ora’s vocals — via minor pitch shifting and the blasted “It Ain’t Me” Chorus Singers — hadn’t diluted it already.
[5]

Katie Gill: This song needed another round of revisions, if only so Avicii and Ora could have found a way to reduce that awkward, rushed “let’s be lonely together” to the shorter phrase that is needed: the song just grinds to a HALT there, as poor Rita Ora tries to sing “let’s be lonely together” as quickly as she can so the song can get to the (kind of mediocre) drop. Undoubtedly this song had plenty of editors or producers, why didn’t somebody catch that?
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: I can’t help but feel that what I like best about “Lonely Together” — that Rita Ora’s restraint makes the festival-singalong chorus into something tasteful — means I really don’t get Avicii at all.
[6]