The Singles Jukebox

Not so different, we say…

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Kat Stevens: Oh dear. A few years ago I went through a phase of reading terrible freebie Austen rip-offs from the iBooks store. These were all in the Georgette Heyer style, where the bolshy heroines don’t let the restrictions of Regency etiquette impinge on their independent lifestyles. Riding a horse through the streets of Bath without a chaperone and so on, you know, edgy stuff. The most memorable of these (so memorable I have forgotten the title) went one step further. It featured a young heiress who actually hooked up with her fiancé in secret, the night before their wedding (!). Readers, I will admit it was a little more graphic than I was expecting, given the book’s relative tameness up to that point. If it had been a paper version in a charity shop, the spine would blatantly have been bent back in the right place to make it fall open on that page. Anyway, the sordid chapter ended with the dude flipping our deflowered heroine over and saying “now let me pleasure you in a different way,” and now you know why I burst out laughing when I got to the chorus of this song. 
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: A lesser DJ Snake single still generates some curiosity with the producer in the middle of workshopping his next great vocal hook. The filtered, rapid-fire spit of “A Different Way” gets nowhere close to the tenderness teased out from the chops of “Talk” or even “Middle.” But it does see him tap into the more goofy senses of “Turn Down for What” without the track resembling the headache of that 2012 raucous.
[6]

Crystal Leww: DJ Snake is my favorite emotional EDM producer, never really getting credit for being a part of EDM’s softening. “Talk” was one of my favorite songs of 2016, a deeply underrated gem hidden between massive DJ Snake singles that managed to slide under every critic’s radar. “A Different Way” doesn’t quite hit that high, but it’s probably slightly better than the Bieber song because it avoids the stickiness of the Bieber narrative. Ed Sheeran continues his streak of penning pretty decent pop songs when sung (not weirdly rapped) by other people. This is simple, affecting, and an absolute surprise of a banger.
[7]

Micha Cavaseno: It’s a protective and fond song that looks to provide a means to guide someone to a peaceful and more comforting way of life in the wake of such strife, a message we could all relate to now and again. Sadly, it’s being communicated by Snake taking his last album’s formula and providing really diminishing returns on it.
[3]

Stephen Eisermann: After reading the Apple Music notes about this track being cowritten by Ed Sheehan, everything made sense. “No wonder he sounds like Ed,” I mumbled to myself. Just like 95% of Sia cowrites, artists who record Ed Sheehan songs tend to try to emulate his voice and it’s the most bizarre thing. This generic Caribbean infused track is barely unique as it is (that drop is hot but not much else), why then bring it down by attempting to sound like someone else? 
[4]

Will Rivitz: In a history class I’m taking right now, we’ve been talking about “dynamic audio compression”: basically, a tactic to make a song sound louder with the same volume level by bringing its loudest frequencies down to the level of its quietest and then pushing everything up. It’s effective for certain aims – making a commercial cut through more aggressively than a main program, for example, or ensuring that customers in a retail outlet can hear the background Muzak perfectly — but it tends to diminish the impact and draw of a song; the tune’s peaks and troughs flattened, it sounds flatter and packs less of a punch. “A Different Way” is structurally about equivalent to dynamic audio compression: every section is present at about the same volume, no changes in energy level between verse, chorus, and the instrumental-like patois following it. It sounds nice, sure, and I guess it’s all clear and well-produced, but there’s nothing more to it.
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Rebecca A. Gowns: Most of this song doesn’t sound too different from what’s already trending on the dance charts, from the heavy-resonance vocals to the tinny beat (one that, of course, disappears into weightlessness for the chorus then saunters back in for the drop). The drop is the difference, the one part that makes you sit up a little. Muffled words barely surface underneath the layer of minimal instrumentation, like passing by an aquarium tank and hearing someone calling out to you from behind the glass. What is that man doing there, and what is he trying to communicate? A mundane mystery — most likely he’s cleaning the tank and wants you to move along to the next exhibit — but at least it’s something slightly different, a sound that can bounce around your head until the next strange sound comes along.
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