The Singles Jukebox

Our top-scoring record of 2016 lets loose a little more stardust…

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[7.29]Thomas Inskeep: Corinne Bailey Rae: good singer, good songwriter, but her records have always been too Radio 2 for my taste: staid, “classy,” a bit of a snooze.  That all changes with “Been to the Moon,” however, and I give plenty of the credit to KING’s Paris and Amber Strother, who cowrote this. “Moon” is a buoyant love song, buoyed primarily by its plush synths but also by Rae’s vocals, which are no less than ebullient. The coda of jazzy late-night horns is luscious, too.
[10]

Iain Mew: The influence of Amber and Paris Strother sounds clearest in the verses, as their synth squiggles reach out to bring warmth to outer space. KING’s album doesn’t have a chorus as earthbound and straightforwardly big as this has, though, and Bailey Rae brings the song together in a way that’s a lovely development of her own sound, not slipping into someone else’s.
[8]

Claire Biddles: I never liked Corinne Bailey Rae — her sunshine-y adult pop always seemed so smug, like she was singing with a thin smile instead of the pout of Sade or Jill Scott. I like the start of this, with its seductive pockets of sexuality, but the fizzing becomes schmaltz just as I’m starting to get into it. It’s kind of summed up towards the end, when Bailey Rae coos, “I’ve been to the moon/so gently” — enigmatic at first, but soon falls into the practised format of her earlier work.
[3]

Cassy Gress: It took me until the chorus to figure out where this was going — before that, I heard a soft, fluttery murmur atop farty bass sounds and a synthesizer that wasn’t so much played as fallen upon. But in the chorus, the synthesizer smooths out and you can almost hear her bopping her head as she gets to the rhythmic “I’ve been to the moon and stars for you and now it’s your turn.” I always side-eye a little bit lyrics that have been contorted to fit a theme, but this one isn’t too bad; love and the moon have been associated for millennia anyway, and aside from a few “elliptical” and “astronaut” and “galaxy” references, this stays fairly straightforward. I can still hear “Put Your Records On” in her voice, but I can hear a little bit of Minnie Riperton alongside it.
[6]

Brad Shoup: This is the sun-dappled R&B Prince has spent this century chasing. Plus she reached outside the bubble for the horns. The flat synths keep this off kilter, helped by an open, measured kit; over it all, Rae orbits.
[8]

Alfred Soto: A model of virtuosic undulation and sustaining a rapture as all-encompassing as Wordsworth’s blank verse, KING’s debut album should serve as a CV for Paris and Amber Strother’s songwriting and production. When I’m in a bad mood, the album can bore me. Corinne Bailey Rae, a model of virtuosic niceness, gives this Strother composition the chug of Red Bull it needs.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Any record with the squelching verse, fittingly sounding assembled from cut-up recordings of a space shuttle launch, as well as thirty seconds reserved in the outro for swoon, would earn high marks. That the rest is so ebullient only helps.
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