The Singles Jukebox

We’ve gone a little cool on her since summer.

[Video][Website]
[3.90]

Danilo Bortoli: This is the sad realization that not everything can be like (or at least share the same impulses as) “Cool For the Summer.” Which is not a critique of the ballad model per se: Lovato has been able to do this with much more ease. What’s gone wrong this time around? Maybe it is the inherent vagueness. Maybe it is her supreme trust in her vocal acrobatics. It might be indicative of a bigger problem: Demi is still trapped in the stage in her career where she believes an album should still contain a given amount of piano-driven, generic songs, the contractually obliged tearjerkers that seem to plague every more than simply competent singer’s body of work. I can’t wait to see her move on from this bureaucracy.
[4]

Cédric Le Merrer: Demi must be so annoying on karaoke nights.
[3]

Cassy Gress: It’s funny that Youtube’s next suggested video was “Dangerous Woman,” because this is exactly what I was talking about, with “needs someone who will get absorbed into the song.”  I can hear shades of several other songs that came out in the last year or so, but this is more successful than any of them, in large part because Demi has a spectacular emotional range in her voice.  But man… I thought I’d basically forgiven myself for poor relationship decisions made when I was younger and stupider, but Demi’s clear-eyed maturity in the face of heartbreak is ripping me up a little.  Would that I could be like that when I grow up.
[7]

Jer Fairall: Poised and dramatic, the piano and strings set a tastefully measured tone that will be recognizable to anyone who lived through the Lilith Fair era, but Lovato’s Idol-y histrionics strive toward an operatic scale comically ill-suited to so inconsequential a lyric. Her ridiculous performance in the song’s video only confirms her allergy to nuance.
[3]

Will Adams: The kind of Lady Gaga dramatics that’s fit for either the Oscars stage or a high school auditorium. Except Gaga’s already done and nailed the former, leaving Lovato to caterwaul her heart out to a bunch of bored students.
[3]

Alfred Soto: It isn’t just how terrible the song is — it’s the vocal excesses, so intent on mimicking Whitney Houston or something that they must be an exercise in Dada-esque destruction. Right?
[2]

Brad Shoup: I’m just glad Demi did this so Sia couldn’t.
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: Demi Lovato wants you to know she has a great voice. Mission accomplished! Now, can she do something interesting with it, or is Adele-ization as far as this will go?
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Whereas Adele comes off increasingly like a put-on, an actress playing a role, I believe the pain in this; Lovato sells it. The song itself is a little overwrought, though not by much, but Lovato’s vocal is positively wrenching. I feel like she’s the pop singer for the misunderstood kids right now, and I respond to that.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: A Lana Del Rey impression that becomes an Adele impression without ever breaching original territory. That said: extra retroactive point if it comes out that “I was your amber” “was originally supposed to continue “but she was your Kim.”
[3]