The Singles Jukebox

Something in the way that sounds middling.

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Will Adams: From “Burn” onwards, Goulding has felt out of place on her Top 40 singles to varying degrees. “Something In the Way You Move” offers a nice balance between channeling the now — dark synth pulse in the vein of “Love Me Harder” staged for a dancefloor — and the core of Goulding’s work — a lightness, whether through bubbly synths or high register hooks, that elevates the music to an unconventional space.
[7]

Iain Mew: A ton of mini-hooks and production ideas gleamed from across the dance/pop spectrum of hits of the last couple of years compete for space, almost on a line-for-line basis. I’m not inherently against that approach, which could be fun, but coupled with a (pre/)chorus which sounds like a first draft of “Love Me Like You Do” it just gives the song an air of being abandoned halfway through a narrowing down process. I would like to hear something which focused on the opening synth disco pulse.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Refracting years of dance pop through a sensibility accustomed to European outdoor concerts, Ellie Goulding has made a mint in America, as adamantine a presence on radio as Adam Levine. “Something in the Way You Move” perfects her approach: a snail gliding on asphalt, leaving no trace.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: In “Something in the Way You Move”, Ellie Goulding continues with the narrative of “On My Mind”: heart and mind are messed up. Rather than forgetting both and only follow the body, she is fully conscious — just hear her heartbreaking vocals in the first prechorus — and has no expectations either — “There is nothing I can do to change your ways”– but she knows there is no way she can’t follow this contagious beat. If this is all about an unstoppable continuum, I can’t understand why the song is interrupted by useless “oh”s. 
[7]

Cassy Gress: I never had a dirtbag boyfriend. Did I miss some sort of rite of passage? There are so many songs and tweets and blog posts about that person whom you KNOW is awful but you can’t resist anyway. And every one, without fail, makes me want to hug the writers and in a patronizing-but-not-on-purpose way stroke their hair and go, “Oh, darling. You deserve so much better than this.” This one is no exception. Musically, it’s fine in a shruggy kind of way, though I miss when she sounded more processed and tense and raspy.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: The falsetto bird calls in the background are a nice textural detail, adding hooky grain to a song that would otherwise slide right over the mind as though it’s been greased.
[5]

Brad Shoup: She’s swiped the stepping rhythm (and maybe the background coos) of “Hold On, We’re Going Home” and the chorus of “Love Me Like You Do.” Neither’s a crime, but the caesuras are a gimmick that never land. Goulding’s much better when she’s taking thoughts through their natural course. And mostly, that’s what she gets to do here.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Not unpleasant, but I can extrapolate my own Median Ellie Goulding Song from her existing hits without her having to do that minor job for me as well.
[5]