The Singles Jukebox

You could bang your head against a wall, or you could listen to David Guetta’s new single. You choose!

[Video][Website]
[5.10]

Mo Kim:  “Bang My Head” can be read as a song about trauma and recovery; it can also be read as a would-be Top 40 hit from one of America’s most popular EDM artists and two of America’s most popular performers. In pop and in life, fictions about trauma are often intertwined with fictions of the economy–adversity just makes a good success story, and everybody who stepped on you is going to hear your song on the radio someday. Hence, Sia’s tale of being “bound” and “tied” makes way for a banger of a chorus in which she (and, in the second chorus’ perspective shift, you) “will rise above it all,” and it all means whatever the listener needs it to mean. Fetty Wap’s verse is equal parts bravado and anxiety, “climbing up the wall” juxtaposed against “going through it all,” his assertion of his “having fun” undercut by his insistence that he “cannot fall.” I will be out of college in two years, and between now and then I have a lot I need to figure out: I think a lot about what it means to survive, how I’ll know I’ve made it, but when I think about what my life is going to look like in just a few years, I come up gasping and blank. It’s complicated, and “Bang My Head” is complicated, and all I can really grasp of it right now is the grasping itself, how Sia theatrically claims melodic space on every chorus she gets, how Fetty Wap strains in making his effort sound effortless, how Guetta marries tension to release because in pop and in life, one cannot have one without the other. When the song fades out, I still find myself wishing for another eight measures.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: Listening to this just makes me think of what a wonder Sia’s vocals were on “Titanium,” signifying a triumphant soar above every kind of adversity you can think of. These days her vowels by themselves weigh about ten tons, dragging obvious blunt-force choruses into mopes. Turbo-charged mopes, but mopes nonetheless. Glad Fetty’s riding out his moment in the sun by getting some Guetta money but blink or look at your phone for a minute and his part’s gone by without any impact.
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: Sia’s always had a certain amount of ease at plying her vocals to dance until recently, because now she appears to feel a certain need to continue this unusual fake accent and also force the tempo to take on the feel of her songs, rather than whatever’s truly popular on dance floors. In doing so, the build for the chorus here becomes dreadfully stunted, preventing Guetta from the lift-off the track could go for, even at the more subdued “Tropical House” grooves taking off now. And the less said about the rambly and uninspired Fetty feature, the better.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: Almost all the points are for Fetty getting a high-profile spot, although Guetta’s triumph-schlock and Sia’s mutter-yowling are such a vivid contrast to his usual sonic surroundings that sheer novelty carries the song where sense and subtlety fail.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Part of me wants to roll my eyes at this, because only David Guetta could be handed two of the most (literally) interesting sounding artists and drop them into something so generic. But…it actually sounds pretty good, especially the drop, and both featured singers fit in well, even if they don’t leave a big impression. And it’s pretty compact, too.
[6]

Danilo Bortoli: The list of David Guetta’s collaborators grows increasingly nonsensical with every passing day, and that says a lot, believe me. “Bang My Head” does not treat said tradition differently. Sia does what she’s supposed to do — hide beneath the production, that is — and Fetty Wap’s presence is barely sensed. Here, he would be easily replaceable. The title is an adequate description of the after effects of listening to the song, though.
[3]

Will Adams: David Guetta’s shameless trend-chasing either amuses or disgusts me; it’s always so obvious that I have to wonder whether he knows what he’s doing. Whether he’s ripping off Stargate/Rihanna, himself, or — in the case of the original “Bang My Head” — Cedric Gervais, he hits the same problem: his music is dated, verging on despicable for its composting of last year’s sound. “Bang My Head”‘s story might be the most overt example: retooled for the hilariously titled re-release Listen Again, Guetta slows the tempo to pleasant tropical house (which unfortunately results in some noticeable artifacts in Sia’s vocal) and adds in Fetty Wap because, hey, he’s hot right now. Like most of Guetta’s music, it slips through the cracks by blending in with the crowd, which is the faintest praise I can give someone who hasn’t had an original thought in five years.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Fetty gives Sia a run for her existential-stardom money; I wish he’d gotten a chance to garble the chorus notes like her. Guetta’s chorus is nothing but triumph, though: a squawking two-note figure that’s gonna be the stickiest thing about this.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Guetta hasn’t changed a bit; even when hastily remixing his old stuff to suit tropical house demand, he can’t bring himself not to bang the track against the wall. Sia, as increasingly usual, writes a “Fight Song” for people who see extended metaphors in everything. Fetty, as usual, sounds like he wandered in from an entirely different universe, one with stakes. Basically, product gonna product.
[5]

Alfred Soto: Thanks to Guetta’s beats, Sia is a dead ringer — it’s been said many times, but never more so — for 2010-era Rihanna. Fetty’s in there, I think. Unmemorable but not terrible. I banged my head once.
[4]