The Singles Jukebox

Bustle: “So, what does Ellie Goulding’s ‘Still Falling For You’ tell us about the identity of Bridget Jones’s baby’s father?”

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[5.09]

Crystal Leww: This was made for a romantic comedy soundtrack?
[2]

Iain Mew: Shellback : Max Martin :: Patrick Dempsey : Hugh Grant.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Ms. Bombastic Chipmunk Voice apparently decided that having a crap single on 50 Shades of Look How Kinky We Are! soundtrack wasn’t enough, so now she’s got the leadoff single from Another Fucking Bridget Jones Movie. I suppose someone has to do it now since Dido’s retired.
[0]

Scott Mildenhall: There’s at least a 50% chance that the new Bridget Jones movie was only made so Ellie Goulding could record a song for it, and unsurprisingly that turns out to be something good. Imagine a Tove Lo song, except nice. It makes sense to have Goulding sing it — given “Explosions”, “Army” and “Love Me Like You Do,” she is one of the finest purveyors of nice going. The nicest part here is how the end of the verses initially threatens to soar, but then retreats into near inaudibility: synths by candlelight. When she eventually does reach the summit it’s like the lights coming on after a power cut — not in a dangerous, state-of-emergency way, but in a romantic, movie-screen way.
[7]

Cassy Gress: I can’t say whether this soaring epic of a love song matches the movie it’s soundtracking (I suspect not), but Ellie’s “And just like that, a-a-AALLLLL I breathe,” with those piano crashes and resolute synth strings, is gorgeous and immediately brings to mind desperate kisses in the rain and carrying your partner over the threshold and all the other classic cinematic romance scenarios. The bridge is someone throwing a bucket of cold water over the whole affair, unfortunately.
[7]

Brad Shoup: The track bows to a multiplicity of Gouldings: the carefully rising drumstrikes, the steelpan synths, the trap clicks that you just gotta have now. It is utterly incapable of supporting her as she makes what should be a glorious stand for love. It’s as if everyone gave up on the pop charts and aimed straight for adult contemporary.
[5]

Will Adams: Early in her career, Goulding was haunted by the success of her “Your Song” cover, causing her to revisit the same pretty, safe fare despite her ability to create interesting ballads. Now, that specter has mutated into the need for set pieces to enliven dull cinematic fare post-Fifty Shades. “Still Falling for You” does well in its first minute, using little more than a scaling synthbell figure to support Goulding’s vaulting vocal. But then the drums kick in and the song buckles under the strain of trying to recapture the big! and momentous! energy I presume the songwriters were aiming for.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: The verses seem like Ellie’s traveling further into the sleepy, generic pop of Delirium, and even the keyboard sounds supermarket-y. Then, “just like that” indeed, the spectacular chorus happens, and we’re back to her energetic, expansive Halcyon days. Things get a little bit too 2012 in the half-time dubstep bridge, but that’s redeemed by the way the chorus repeats over the same tempo instead of returning to the martial drumbeat. When she and the producers stick that landing, all the occasionally disjointed moments make sense — it’s the kind of payoff that’s been missing from Ellie’s music for years. 
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: A thousand singers quirk a thousand times harder than Ellie Goulding anymore, and “Love Me Like You Do” succeeded despite, or because of, its vocal anonymity; so here Ellie subdues her voice beneath the music, as if worshipping. Apparently, pop worshipping now means triangulating Tom Petty, praise music and Hailee Steinfeld. What “Still Falling For You” doesn’t triangulate: any sense of falling.
[5]

Katie Gill: This certainly sounds like music to score a credits scene to. But at the same time, it’s got a wonderful powerful peppiness, more akin to Charli XCX than my general impression of Ellie Goulding. And Lord knows music always needs more pounding girl pop that makes you smile.
[7]

Peter Ryan: So often the problem with *EPIC* soundtrack cuts is that they rely too heavily on the lyrical platitudes to establish stakes (“love on the line”, “all I feel is you”, etc.), without backing things up sonically. This knows what it’s doing — a shimmery verse that builds steadily to an expertly-shouted and multitracked chorus blastoff, “JUST! LIKE! THAT!” — this is the part where someone should be diving into the sea. It’s sweepingly cinematic and overwrought and precisely goopy enough to put a little lump in my throat because of course I like this and duh I’m seeing the movie.
[7]