The Singles Jukebox

Other rhymes she could’ve gone with: caper, vapor, tapir, Draper…

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[5.08]

Michelle Myers: Here is a song that needs its context. Last year, Demi Lovato spent a few months in an inpatient psychiatric care facility, seeking treatment for bulimia, bipolar disorder, and self-harming. It was during the dark days before her treatment that she heard “Skyscraper.” She quickly recorded the song; when she was finished recording, she cried. During treatment, Lovato considered the possibility of re-recording “Skyscraper,” but upon release from the facility she realized she preferred the emotion of the original recording. So here it is, Demi Lovato’s deep psychic pain, presented with an earnestness that only a miserable teenager could muster.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Demi Lovato and team are fucking geniuses. After an avalanche of successively ickier headlines, the sort that would’ve gotten her trucked off to wilderness camp if she’d grown up as somebody other than Demi Lovato, the narrative for her comeback single was always gonna be, “Well, does this make up for the sex and drugs?” The genius was in cranking back the instrumentation, even on the bridge and not using the most obvious processing on Demi’s voice, changing the narrative to, “Wow. I didn’t know she could sing!” Very post-Adele. Very effective. Maybe her comeback could’ve also been in PR.
[7]

Anthony Easton: Lovely voice, with a bell-like clarity, and not too much over-emoting, but a little formal and more than a little bland. Refuses to scrape anything more than 5 stories. 
[4]

Al Shipley: I like Demi’s voice better when she’s not breathing into the mic and quavering emotively just a little too much, but it worked on “Don’t Forget.” It doesn’t quite work here because the instrumental textures are prettier than what they’re foregrounding. But mostly it’s that stupid tortured metaphor dragging everything down like the opposite of a skyscraper or something.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Girl, why the heavy breathing? You’re a compelling singer when the career of Katy Perry isn’t exerting an anxiety of influence.
[3]

Ian Mathers: It’s tempting to check out of this feast of mixed metaphors and rancid cliches, but there’s a strain to Lovato’s voice that, even if I didn’t have some dim inkling of The Troubles, would go some way towards selling the song. Usually when the singer tells us that we can tear her down (like she was made of glass, like she was made of paper), the implicit message is that the singer is immune to our depredations; here, it sounds more like Lovato is a phoenix than a monolith. It works much better than it should.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Self-Esteem Pop nearly gets its own “November Rain,” with only the expected grand crescendo failing to burst free from the seams.  Lovato’s totally game, though, turning in the most overreaching vocal turn by a pop star since Avril’s Alice in Wonderland theme, leaving this stranded somewhere between Idol-esque histrionics and pretty good cheese.  
[5]

Pete Baran: There is no denying Demi’s blockbusting voice; it was about the only thing that stood out in the otherwise banal Camp Rock films. But unfortunately the need for a redemptive ballad after being in Disney Rehab has led her to churn out Skyscraper. Perhaps like Selena Gomez she is worried that all the good song similes have been taken, because she wants this to be her “Stronger.” However there is a real problem with invoking a skyscraper as a sense of resilience a couple of months before the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
[3]

Jonathan Bogart: I can’t help it — when she lays on the Meaningful Rasp towards the end I get all emotional. Possibly this is because the first time I heard it I thought of it as a 9/11 metaphor, and I can’t shake the association.
[8]

Brad Shoup: A deliberately paced ballad. So deliberate, in fact, that it took me a few listens to understand that “paper” is supposed to rhyme with “skyscraper”. Lovato is mixed way up in the track, which leaves one plenty of space to contemplate her fine pipes as she strangles the text for the duration of the song. You’ll note that Kerli Kõiv is listed as a songwriter, but she’s delivered very little of her considerable nutty charisma to the final track; the party has swapped out pity for tea.
[4]

Michaela Drapes: I just can’t get past that “like I’m made of paper” is shoved in to make the tin-eared rhyme with “like a skyscraper”; even if everything else about this song was utterly perfect, I couldn’t let this slide. As it is, it’s just the icing on the cake of awfulness that is Lovato’s emotionally manipulative notice-me-look-at-me-PLEASE-NOTICE-ME histrionics. I would very much like it if Toby Gad never produced another “tearjerker” like this again (see also: “If I Were a Boy,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” et. al.), but I think that’s kind of like wishing for a pony or Prince Charming, really.
[2]

Edward Okulicz: You can tell from one listen that this song’s lyrical allusions to standing near-indestructible in the face of adversity is going to mean something to a lot of people who hear it. And Lovato sings it like it means something to her too. You can almost hear it as a higher-stakes spiritual successor to Taylor Swift’s “White Horse,” but as gamely as “Skyscraper” declares its strength, it unravels in poor lyrics (the “paper/skyscraper” rhyme, for instance) that all the conviction in the world can’t animate into real feelings. Almost earns its sweep and misery, but not quite.
[6]