The Singles Jukebox

Talking fast and sitting in the sun.

[Video][Website]
[4.62]

Crystal Leww: In less than two years DJ Snake went from being the guy famous for an EDM song that represented the bro-iest of the scene that turned into basically a joke track to the guy who made soft, pretty, chilled out and twinkly dance tunes with AlunaGeorge and Bipolar Sunshine. “Middle” has been perfect for this mild winter of warm weekends sitting in the sun in public parks. Bipolar Sunshine wants you to take him back, but he’s not going to try too hard and he’s not going to sound desperate. “Middle” entices with a dream world of slow motion stutters and simple promises. Only a [7] because the Mija remix, which is slightly sped up, adds a female vocal and a slightly different drum pattern is a [9], transcendent and beautiful.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: I’m a sucker for EDM that pulls inward. Big, buzzy drops have their place, but when producers decide to invert their approach and make intimate music — well, that’s always a nice surprise. I would not have guessed DJ Snake — whose big hits are LOUD AND WILD AND ARE YOU HAVING A GOOD TIME???? and who live sounds like he has a throat made out of Lucky Spirits — capable of something as sweet as “Middle,” a nervous song with a drop both nervously optimistic and desperate. It tries to imprint’s EDM’s bold-type approach to emotion to a muddled situation in clumsy, endearing fashion.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart: I’ll admit to not knowing anything of DJ Snake but “Turn Down for What,” which I wholeheartedly love, because I love Lil Jon and I love any music that lets Lil Jon be Lil Jon. I don’t like Bipolar Sunshine (ugh, really?) nearly as much, certainly not on first acquaintance, but I’m quietly impressed by how well monsieur Snake matches his collaborators. The clipped-and-slipped chorus, with its human voice rattling vacantly through vacuum tubes, is one of my favorite 2010s effects.
[7]

Alfred Soto: When he collaborates with AlunaGeorge, DJ Snake shows a ruminative side. On tracks like this with their distorted vocal samples and nondescript guests, he’s little more than shrieking nullity ignored on Saturday night.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: How long until “tropical house” becomes synonymous with “not even trying, nor house”?
[1]

Brad Shoup: I wish I could see the looks on the tropical-house archivists’ faces when they realize DJ Snake had another song.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Until the DJ Snake Synth Noise™ slithered into the mix, I thought I was listening to one of those Chemical Brothers come-down tracks that show up at the end of their albums except they’d blown their budget and couldn’t afford Beth Orton or Richard Ashcroft or whoever. Maybe DJ Snake blew the budget: any charms — and this fatigued throb reveals few — are dispelled by Bipolar Sunshine, whose thin vocal wobbles like a poorly constructed paper airplane.
[3]

Micha Cavaseno: Those obnoxious kalimba-like clinks are the perfect sort of linchpin for such a sentimentalist roller of a tune, even with its reliance upon THE DROP as the end-all be-all. 
[5]