The Singles Jukebox

Groovy!

[Video][Website]
[2.60]

Megan Harrington: It’s Dan Auerbach-produced American-by-way-of-England-fifty-years-past rock, do you need me to tell you it’s boring? Oh, it’s boring. Of all the ways to play with history, to manipulate the lexicon of garage rock, to call a séance of all the souls that wrote this song before you — Auerbach and his Elephants chose none. Nothing. There’s no twist, it’s not even as exciting as eating your influence and then vomiting it back up. “Mess Around” is the same old shit you take every morning. 
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: From the YouTube comments: “Pop? This is blues/indie rock right here, brev.” “No. Its indie pop, jizzed on by Dan Auerbach.” And if you’re curious why “Mess Around” is currently #1 on alternative radio, there’s your answer.
[1]

Jonathan Bogart: 2016 imitating 2002 imitating 1991 imitating 1980 imitating 1966. I got off this train at the last stop.
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: Not sure getting that guy from The Black Keys to do his retro polishing over your music is the best way for a band that already sounded like “lock for second biggest stage at Lollapalooza” to stand out. 
[2]

Cédric Le Merrer: All I know of Cage The Elephant is that I saw them introduced on French TV as “the new Nirvana” a few years back and immediately rolled my eyes and changed to another channel. This starts out nicely with a Spoon-ish minimalism, but everything else is regrettable, from the ironic surf singing that’s much too nasal to the unimaginative melody. Let’s just hope for them this song finds its home where it belongs, in an equally staid ad for a family product showing kids being loveably messy.
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: For all of you who could possibly want the “Tiger Feet” era of rock & roll to come back, Cage the Elephant are here.
[2]

Alfred Soto: Imitate the Vines.
[4]

Cassy Gress: There are good bits in this song; they just don’t congeal into anything great. I think surf rock is (or can be) a good look on Cage the Elephant, and I like borrowed chord progressions like the A-flat to F in the verses. But the chorus is repeated too many times (which feels like padding), and he’s got a sleepy slur that needs a little bit of edge to it.
[5]

Brad Shoup: I think they wrote the song, such as it is, around those sighs. They triple down on some heat imagery, they nick a Ray Charles title that — to me, in 2016 — signifies the Blues Brothers, they repurpose one-fourth of a solo spotted in a dusty corner. Alt-rock deserves better.
[1]

Jonathan Bradley: Dan Auerbach scuffs up some surf guitar and Cage the Elephant sings what appears to be a theme song for the world’s most buttoned-down James Bond. In his latest feature film adventure, Double-Yawn-7 meets a femme fatale at a three-star off-ramp hotel bar; he orders her a glass of warm milk (shaken, not stirred). The thrilling encounter concluded, they retire to their separate rooms; why mess around when this Best Western boasts HBO as part of its cable line-up?
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