The Singles Jukebox

10/10 perfect Photoshop…

[Video]
[6.50]

Alfred Soto: Amazingly, Calvin Harris has laid down a decent house track, worthy of Dua Lipa’s restraint. 
[7]

Alex Clifton: ’90s Eurodance came back and nobody told me! Dua Lipa sounds like she’s phoning it in a little, but she works well with dancey music, so I’m not too mad about it. I’ve always liked Calvin Harris’s work when it’s sounded its most effortless rather than trying too hard to sound hip and in the moment, and he’s hit on something decent here. 
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Given the ’80s yacht vibes of his last album, my expectation (little and far between as they are) for Calvin Harris was not to go ahead and make a speed garage pastiche. Nevertheless he did, with a track that wanders between homages to “Sincere,” “Gabrielle” and vintage Todd Edwards with surprising ease and features a tastefully functional Dua Lipa vocal performance. Overwhelmingly professional in the aftermath of the comparatively amateur quality of Jorja’s “On My Mind,” if Calvin is deciding he’s going to make a novelty UK garage album to free us from England’s obsession with terrible early ’90s house plodding, than I will gladly pledge fealty for another year.
[9]

Ryo Miyauchi: Calvin Harris’s take on UK garage flows with way more feeling than his backyard-BBQ funk of last year. Meanwhile, Dua Lipa sounds free in her relative anonymity here. Maybe the track could’ve used more peaks and valleys, though it shows a new potential in a new genre for both.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: It takes someone like Dua Lipa, the most competent nonentity working, to make Calvin Harris the most vibrant, imaginative and memorable part of a track. If only industry politics could rearrange themselves so Azealia Banks could be on this instead.
[5]

Will Adams: Dua Lipa is inert as usual, and Calvin Harris’s sudden pivot from the funk-pop that defined 2017 is pre-emptive (though probably wise). The groove is decent, but I’d rather turn to someone like Moon Boots to provide the lushness “One Kiss” aims for.
[5]

Julian Axelrod: I still resent Calvin Harris for finally perfecting his sound on Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1, then abandoning it like a rich kid with a shiny new toy. Sure, this is sturdy, well-executed dance pop, and the trop-house horns give the hook a funhouse mirror warp. But it feels so anonymous for two stars of this stature. It’s one of those rare songs that’s constantly stuck in my head, but I can never remember how it goes. Maybe it’s on me for expecting every Calvin Harris single to be “Slide”; maybe this is just what Calvin Harris songs sound like now.
[6]

Crystal Leww: Calvin Harris’s production reminds me so much of something that Craig David would hop on, and Dua Lipa yet again turns out a sublime vocal that is doing just enough. “One Kiss” and “Nice For What” coming out the week before that blessedly nice day in Brooklyn was just a sign that summer is starting, and the bangers are starting to slap. I’m ready to put on those sparkly shorts, bust out the crop top with no jacket over it, and show the fuck out.
[8]