The Singles Jukebox

[HYPERLINK TO THE SINGLES JUKEBOX’S REVIEW OF BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY]

[Video][Website]
[4.71]

Alfred Soto: This biz songwriter snaps guitar strings and cracks her voice in an attempt to persuade the audience of her honesty, and for three verses she’s got me in a — well not a vise, but wondering how long she can sustain it. Not long, it turns out. What begins as improvisational turns into studied improvisation of no originality.
[3]

Cassy Gress: My first thought was “oh, she sounds like Rihanna.” But she doesn’t really, because I’m not sure Rihanna would ever start off a song sounding like a Yip Yip. I can’t really argue with the message of this though, and I’m in love with the echoed guitars, which remind me of walking around at night when the streets are mostly empty and you catch a bit of someone else’s music coming out of their window, and for a second it’s like your universe merged with theirs.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: Rap-lifted braggadocio? Check. Obvious Amy Winehouse fetishism? Check. Crying about being too cool for high school? Check. Mistakes an acoustic instrument for some kind of power, like the “realness” of it is just too undeniable? Check! No matter how hard Bibi/Bebe/whichever next incarnation should emerge tries, there is an underlying self-seriousness that is far more crass than the at-times pungent earnestness of your Halsey/Alessia types, because it’s in such obvious denial of how base and low-level pandering her gestures are. An “ego” can be celebrated, but primping one’s mediocrity cannot.
[1]

Jer Fairall: If I promise not to bring you down, will you please stop shouting at me?
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: “Ego” should be anathema to me, being that two of my most fundamental moral principles are never believing your own hype and always, always, always, always, always, always, always giving a fuck. But it isn’t, and Bourelly remains hugely promising. The vocal is strong without the strong vocals! she can really sing! framing normally applied to such things; similarly, the solo-acoustic backing, tumbleweed vibe and appeals to realness for once actually feel real. It’s of a piece with her other Rihanna cowrite “Higher,” a song that’s polarizing in the sense that half its listeners will take it to heart.
[7]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: 808-backed Garage Blues is a concept I can gladly get behind. The repeated “Down, d-d-down, down, d-d-down” lines sound a bit dull at times, but the sparseness of the accompaniment paired with the rough cadence in her voice sell this track quite well. It’s good to know some things do run in the family. 
[6]

Brad Shoup: Someone else — possibly a country writer — might have ridden in on the “got me fucked up” part. But Bourelly forces everything (the parched guitar twang, herself, the listener) to contend with the broken beat. She writes the song like a limp: we like to talk about things the radio might not reach for, but a listing Sia/Citizen Cope jam is beyond grasp. If Bourelly were five to ten years older, I’d be listening for the disillusion. But at her age, this is a gauntlet.
[7]