The Singles Jukebox

We’ll stay right here with you, Bran.

[Video][Website]
[7.29]

Edward Okulicz: Having enjoyed her first album but not felt the need to go back to its pleasant patness, or its pat pleasantness, this feels like a huge step forward — Clark’s condemnation has intent to pull the trigger this time. “If you want the girl next door, go next door” — so simple, anyone could have written it, but so powerfully deployed. I adore how the chorus could end with that brilliant line but then it rams it into a brilliant second half. I took a point off for two lyrical weak spots; Marcia Brady, and “perfect dress/perfect mess.” Other than that, this feels as much a blast-off as a kiss-off, or like one of Carrie Underwood’s third-person stories was taken into the first person and delivered with cynicism and danceability at the same time. It really shakes, and I’m really excited about what’s to come from her new record now.
[8]

Anthony Easton: Sounds a lot like 80s era Roseanne Cash, which was new wave perfection flirting with Nashville. It could be a pop crossover, just as her last one was an attempt at traditionalism. It also sounds new, not attempting nostalgia, with an excellent hook and a better voice. 
[7]

Alfred Soto: The aural equivalent of dead moths across a sliding door track, 12 Stories didn’t move me much: a smart, precise dead end. The “Edge of Seventeen” rhythm of “Girl Next Door,” hopped up to match Brandy Clark’s lascivious evening with a girl in a pretty apron, is a surprise and a triumph, a reminder that from “Baby I’m Burnin'” to “That Don’t Impress Me Much,” eros in country music requires discolicious beats. The strings lend an air of menace; “Girl Next Door” imagines sexual attraction as a danger that may not end happily. In case the popped bass and thwacking programmed drums frighten NPR fans, an acoustic guitar plays the hook over the fade. Deducted a notch for the Marcia Brady verse, Clark’s lame idea of topical humor. 
[8]

Iain Mew: A kiss-off that sounds like its own getaway vehicle — so this is what widescreen means.
[8]

Brad Shoup: The good-girl putdowns are whatever, but Clark’s constructed this remarkable ecosystem for the narrator. It’d be easy to say find someone who isn’t a dipshit, but the track — streaked in synths, studded with kickdrum — replies with tension and lust and anger. She’s figured out what he’s ultimately looking for, but she’d love to just look beyond tonight.
[6]

Will Adams: The chug of the chorus (never underestimate how far sixteenth-note tom toms à la “Running Up That Hill” can go) is the most engaging part of this; it allows Brandy Clark to fully ignite. The rest is a value pack of imagery — Debbie Downer Debutante, Marcia Brady, bacon frying — that’s hit or miss.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Finally. I wanted, tried to love Clark’s debut as an artist, 12 Songs, because its songwriting was so solid, but its coffeehouse production felt so resigned, like it wasn’t even trying, far too samey over the course of an entire album. “Girl Next Door” is another matter entirely, thanks I suspect largely to Jay Joyce, the man who’s helped make stars out of Little Big Town and Eric Church, and here gives Clark’s sass the behind-the-boards punch it deserves. This chugs, this moves, this is a fuckin’ windows-down sing-a-long, and in the current country radio climate, I can see Clark making her first mark on the airwaves alongside like-minded women like Cam and Maddie & Tae. (And as opposed to her buddy Kacey Musgraves’ trapped-in-amber kitsch, “Girl Next Door” sounds altogether current.) Say hello to Brandy Clark 2.0, not just a hit songwriter but, potentially, a hit artist in her own right. Hot damn.
[8]