The Singles Jukebox

Readers are welcome to score the hypothetical Robyn song instead of this…

[Video]
[2.57]

Alfred Soto: As the bro country wave recedes, we return to the early ’80s of John Schneider and Ronnie Milsap. This can of creamed corn could use pepper flakes, sriracha, rat poison — anything to spice up its lab-tooled sincerity.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: You know “The Rose,” now hear “The Brose.”
[3]

Julian Axelrod: If you’re forcing me to sit through an unbearably dull bro-country ballad, at least make it sound like a goddamn country song. This fangless and twangless “The Scientist” ripoff is so inert and passive it almost makes me miss Luke Bryan’s hot takes — almost.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: Young sings sweetly, but this adult contemporary ballad is nothing. Rascal Flatts would kill for this.
[3]

Taylor Alatorre: One of my musical weaknesses is the plaintive, midtempo acoustic strumming that is heard at various points in this song, most clearly at the 3:00 mark. It’s most effective when used in the bridge of a sentimental pop-rock number, preferably when all other instruments have dropped out so as to heighten the emotional impact. There is no such rhyme or reason to its placement here. It’s a form that’s been severed from all function. Brett Young, why you wanna misuse songwriting tropes just to hurt me?
[3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The first couplet is just one of many painfully overwrought moments in “Mercy,” but most upsetting is how Young doesn’t allow the final lines of the chorus to comfortably rhyme. It’s sung in a way that’s meant to lead into the following verse, but it has the opposite effect of making the transition more clunky. The instrumentation is equally rudimentary but mostly harmless. But there’s nary a moment where one feels like Young is attempting to convey anything beyond superficial emotion–faint, lone guitar strums; the incessant, plodding keys; the bridge’s dinky piano melody; throwing in a “damn” to hint at the severity of the situation–and it strips all meaning and weight from his plea to “have mercy.”
[1]

Will Adams: I’ll give him this: it’s almost an impressive feat to sound like a Calum Scott cover of a Robyn song that doesn’t exist.
[3]