The Singles Jukebox

The next YouTroubadour should fare better — get ready to meet Biden Harris…

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[4.12]

Tobi Tella: More wholesome than Megara, this is pure schmaltz, but the transparent play for emotion doesn’t offend. Maybe it’s the actually sort-of-sweet lyrics, or lowered expectations from my fears he would explode into Lewis Capaldi Voice at any second, but this is a perfect anthem for streaming during the honeymoon phase of your relationship and forgetting it exists moments later.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Stock signifiers plus steady stateliness equals The Most Romantic Song You Have Heard In Your Life (again). Overwrought vocal aside, Clinton Kane knows not to complicate things, but in being the latest to try and boil this concept down to its supernatural essence — Calum Scott came close — he’s overshot the process, ending up with a load of hot air. On the plus side, it could very easily be James Arthur.
[3]

Juana Giaimo: An Ed Sheeran ballad with a piano instead of an acoustic guitar. I think his voice even cracks exactly the same way. 
[4]

Jeffrey Brister: Is there something preventing singers’ voices from resonating in the face, instead resorting to that back-of-the-throat vocal affect? And the wobbly vibrato makes every sustained note feel like an awkward run. It is a perfectly serviceable melody attached to a perfectly serviceable song, but the performance just sounds so BAD, making the fatal mistake of unnecessary effort masquerading as genuine feeling.
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: The plaintive voice of Clinton Kane and the plunking piano chords both thud along; his voice ragged and paper-thin, the earnest pianos smashing down as the yearning strings sizzle and yank. Slowly his voice unravels and unspools, finally collapsing before it can take flight.
[6]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: While the dulcet piano and barely strained earnestness of the vocals signify another win for the first dance industrial complex, I find myself alone in the wilderness begging for even a hint of a drum. 
[5]

Alfred Soto: He comes to his tremulousness sincerely, but if the beloved has haunted him since childhood one presumes she boxed his ears on occasion. OK, often. 
[3]

Mark Sinker: “Worth the wait of all the years of my heartbreak” — but child yr like 21 and this is NOT. IT. “Sweetheart since preschool” is of course a thing but no-one ever needs to make solemn songs about it as a thing, bcz it’s very not relatable. Meanwhile the burr in yr voice is a thing, so whatever u do don’t lose that.
[4]