The Singles Jukebox

Presumably no relation to Bobbie…

[Myspace]
[5.93]

John Seroff: Nothing betrays a lazy American music critic quite like labeling a Euro songbird as “sounding like Björk” but MAN, does this EVER sound like “Venus As a Boy”-era Björk. It’s not just Goulding’s breathy, lightly inflected, up-on-the-last-syllable singing style that begs the comparison; there’s also the rambling, cutesy-poo lyrics and the gently humanistic evocation of new love’s giddy first week. The barely-there butterfly kiss of a hook provides gentle and charming support for Goulding’s sweetly effervescent voice. There’s not too much to sink your teeth into here, but what more could you reasonably ask from anything this fine and frothy but a meringue?
[8]

Martin Skidmore: Another British electro-pop female. This one sings in what seems a mannered, even childish, cutesy tone, but the music is skilled, with some likeable vocal layering. There’s almost no detectable song, though, and the singing style is soon wearing.
[2]

Pete Baran: Ooh, it goes backwards, stuttering, and seems uncomfortably high pitched. And then her voice is a bit vulnerable and she even uses an accent. Is that a lisp? How many tricks has she got in that magic girl singer bag of hers?
[5]

Frank Kogan: Folkie who puts the sort of little-girl breathless-with-wonder voice that I hate more and more the more people use it is tossed into a British dance subgenre that Lex knows the name of, I’m sure, one of those that surrounds voices with miniature wavelets of passion and gently slithering beats and locates poignance in many better singers than Goulding and manages to locate poignance in her, too.
[6]

Ian Mathers: I think it’s because Goulding’s voice sounds kind of distant and disconnected from the rest of the music, but this really sounds to me like a remix of some sort of pleasant enough acoustic ditty. It also sounds a bit Imogen Heap. So I think “milquetoast” is the word.
[6]

Keane Tzong: A pleasant, inoffensive take on more “organic” electronic sounds, one that seems to have been born of no artistic ambition other than exasperation with harder synth sounds. Ellie Goulding’s voice is simultaneously pleasantly frail and full of warmth and vigor, but it can’t polish this into something much more than the minor, transient pleasure it is.
[7]

Iain Mew: The wispy girlish yelps remind me pleasantly of Cathy Davey – yet together with the soft touch electronica the song is very nearly too unassuming all round. There are moments to savour though, with the fun way the backing track resets itself a minute in and the build to joyfully revelling in the moment of “next thing, we’re touching”.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: This has a vaguely rave-flashback feel in the arrangement (helium-ish vocal, big bass undertow, bells and strings and piano oh my), but it’s light as a good omelet; it reminds me indirectly of 88.3’s “Wishing on a Star.” Maybe it’s the trembling stuff about “and we’re touching,” which sounds less calculated than my description probably suggests.
[7]

Hillary Brown: A smidge too much of the same thing.
[4]

Anthony Miccio: Why is everyone singing like wood nymph at dawn these days? I’m all for speeding up Bat For Lashes, but the effect sure doesn’t make that Bjork Orton voice any less ridiculous.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: For a minute I assumed this must be some remix of a song halfway between, say, Imogen Heap and Stina Nordenstam and thought “Wow, I bet the original is fantastic”, then I realised it’s meant to sound like that. And it is an accomplished composition, but Goulding’s childlike helium tones ruin any chance of intimacy or sensuality from lines like “next thing, we’re touching” and make them sound either creepy or infantile depending on your level of charitability.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: I first heard Ellie Goulding on the Starsmith Remix of Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead“. It’s fitting, therefore, that “Starry Eyed” shares a certain ineffable quality with the Passion Pit original. Both are songs that so effectively communicate the feeling of pure bliss that their meaning becomes secondary to the listening experience. This is very nearly a shame, because her lyrics are stunningly evocative. I press play, and together, we “burst into colours in carousels; fall headfirst, like paper planes and playground games.” Hit me with lightning, indeed.
[10]

Alfred Soto: I distrust people who burst into colors as a rule, especially when she evokes the monochromatic tints of Beth Orton imitating Bjork.
[4]

Martin Kavka: In an interview, Goulding states that this song is about “sex and drugs and having a good time.” It’s like much dance music in this respect, but it doesn’t work for me nearly as much as I’d hoped. The bass is afraid to make its presence known, and combined with a glockenspiel and Ellie’s über-twee voice, reminds me far more of sexual fumbling than of actual sex.
[6]