The Singles Jukebox

What’s made us so miserable?

[Video][Website]
[3.75]

Will Adams: If these fools started playing at a wedding I was at, I would leave immediately.
[2]

Iain Mew: Was someone playing “worst possible line-ups” a la “Hall of Fame”? On first glance they seem to be onto a winner. Whatever you can say against Robin Thicke, though, he does the best he can with a lazy disco pastiche + “California Gurls” and almost salvages something listenable. Add on the fact that he’s next to Jessie J given free rein to indulge her worst tendencies, and by comparison he sounds wonderful.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Between Robin Thicke, Maroon 5, and Justin Timberlake I’ve learned to wince at rhythm guitar licks and disco strings.
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: First, the video for this song is insane, the message being “buy a dumb hat, and you can be transported to a magical pink world AND get your girlfriend back.” Whether it is straight-laced or done with a smirk doesn’t matter, it’s dumb as heck. The song meanwhile is…pretty alright! Considering the names beyond the “featuring,” DJ Cassidy deserves credit for getting them to not do anything to muck up the atmosphere he conjures up. It is ultimately a discount version of “Get Lucky,” without the flashy headwear (maybe that’s why the video is centered around hats???), and much, much cheesier (“it’s ok to mingle if your single/put a smile on your face”). But as far as contemporary versions of drinks-with-umbrellas-in-them disco go, its OK.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: This is just weird. DJ Cassidy has emerged from nowhere to release this, and soon, an album featuring lots of famous people. It’s been trailed for months, too, even by Jessie J — so how has this happened? Does DJ Cassidy actually exist? Clearly a lot of effort has been put into trying to make it happen (which, on the presumably desired level, it hasn’t); almost as much as into the music itself. Just watch the “album trailer,” as brilliantly self-serious as its existence suggests, showing Cassidy on some kind of Justin Lee Collins-esque mission to reunite loads of funk and disco musicians, stand at the front and take the credit. The thing about the best music they made in the 70s, though, is that whatever effort went into it, it seems effortless: the very antithesis of “Calling All Hearts”. As is reliable, Jessie J is the embodiment of joylessness; Robin Thicke surely only invited to make sure people would note the desperation. A wedding disco, only as experienced by the DJ.
[4]

Crystal Leww: If you ever want to be bummed out by a feel-good track.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: The most terrifying PR juggernaut in recent memory (impressive, given that recent memory includes a posthumous Michael Jackson song and Poland’s Eurovision entry) has united legendary session musicians with second-string pop stars, blowing more money and pomp more joylessly than even Random Access Memories managed. Nevertheless, we at the Jukebox have obtained an incredibly #rare video of the studio sessions. Check it out.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Nile Rodgers chicken-scratch guitar + the EWF horn section + Robin Thicke dialing back the smarm and reminding us why some of us liked him in the first place (aka pre-’13) + Jessie J actually doing some singing for once = a lovely little rollerskating jam.
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: The big floor sound of late disco/early boogie performed with all the precision of a metronome and all the soul of a metronome.
[4]

Jer Fairall: Sticking Thicke in a Timber-lite supporting role is a decent idea. Providing Jessie J with a vocal part basic enough that it leaves little room for her usual squawks and stutters is an even better one. Now just send this back in time twenty-some years so it can sit alongside “Hands Up” and “We’re Here For a Good Time” on one of those Sun Jammin’ cassettes that were staples of our family road trips and I might actually find my way towards really enjoying this.
[5]

Brad Shoup: This makes the Karmin single sound like “To Forgive Is to Suffer”. The first 10 seconds promise plastic bliss, a spare pop utility. But there’s too much happening — Jessie J’s syllable crimes, Robin Thicke saying “butt” — and it’s just a lot of busy work.
[4]

Andy Hutchins: All the energy and beckoning of a flatline.
[2]