The Singles Jukebox

“It” being “…it’s okay, I guess??”…

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[5.91]

Alfred Soto: The beats match the singer’s inadvisable obsession and masochism. “Break my bed to make me want to stay,” she moans.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: If you believe pop, the entire straight female population is faltering FWBs with indifferent sadists, which given the state of today’s passionless millennial male may well become true. It’s easy to fault Flume and others for becoming famous for endless songs, presented interchangeably, of girls pouring themselves prostrate before guys who do nothing, but women write these songs and women connect. In music and maybe life, at least a quarter of women’s masochistic narratives are really about longing for some expression, even temporary, of unmediated, uncalculating desire, and settling for an insincere physical simulation. Tove knows; aside from the beginning, a flurry of piano notes and telecom feedback like the bridge of Disclosure’s “Control”, Flume’s production wisely stays out of the way of her voice, crystalline against a dark backdrop and so shimmering it’s painful. It’s a real-time moment of clarity that goes nowhere; the key resolves as her relationship does the opposite. That synth guitar wail must be Flume’s own urges getting out, those ’80s infatuations.
[7]

Will Adams: Tove Lo’s appeal had always eluded me, and now I know why: the setting for her edge-for-edge’s-sake musings were always cloudy. In “Say It,” it’s stormy — Flume’s percussion remains the key to his productions, simultaneously skittery and aggressive. “Let me fuck you right back” is a tough line to sell; here it’s given proper weight.
[7]

Iain Mew: It’s a sign of how much I enjoy Flume’s production work on his album that its most conventionally song-focused tracks tend to be my least favourites. It’s a function of the songs though, of course — AlunaGeorge’s last single was heightened by a smattering of his more extreme sounds and “Never Be Like You” at least fore-fronted a good song. This one is unremarkable even by Tove Lo standards and leaves Flume sounding on autopilot too.
[4]

Katie Gill: For someone who had two hits that were exceedingly “eh,” Tove Lo’s appearing in other people’s songs at an astronomical rate. This song continues her trend of songs that are just okay, though it’s hampered by an atrocious beat during the chorus and Tove Lo’s bad habit of ignoring the fact that singing needs emotion.
[3]

Brad Shoup: Maybe you can stay so sad forever, I dunno. Tove Lo contributes a lyric that’s completely in her range; but this time, she’s dancing with the feel-anything spirit that made “Habits”. It makes this more playful; it shifts the power. Flume’s heightening synths and rug-pulling drums help her out.
[7]

Crystal Leww: Flume is usually pretty one-note for me, but there are a few moments of brilliance on Skin, including “Say It.” I love that Tove Lo lets the words tumble out of her mouth on the verses, right before that killer of a chorus that echoes and clangs and fills up the space. The beautiful thing about the death of EDM is how it has splintered and fractured into a million little directions. This is gorgeously intimate while still sounding huge. 
[9]

William John: The volatility of tempo in Flume songs — constantly pushing forth and pulling back, twitching and jerking — is becoming less a curious oddity and more a dull habit. In one section of “Say It” handclaps threaten acceleration and climax, but the spasmodic synths, heavy as concrete, always get their way. Call me when there’s a remix with a donk on it.
[4]

Cassy Gress: This song sounds like a malfunctioning HVAC system, and it boasts a chorus that they wrote half the lyrics to and then stretched across eight bars. Tove Lo sings the verses and pre-chorus with silences of no more than two beats, but the chorus is full of huge vocal silences where Flume zoops and boings. She doesn’t mesh with the song well enough for it to seem like a proper back and forth.
[3]

Tim de Reuse: The swooping, noisy stop-start of the chorus is aggressive and infectious, but everything else feels spread a bit too thin: the vocalist finds a comfort zone above a pleasantly fuzzy synth chord patch, and most of the song’s four minutes are spent circling around this point. It’s a competent vibe, but it’s just not the kind of Daft Punkian earworm masterpiece that can hold together repeated for four minutes without moving in any particular direction.
[5]

Will Rivitz: Flume is frustratingly inconsistent — about half of his discography is absolute madness and about half is milquetoast as all get-out. “Say It,” thankfully, is part of the half that makes me continue to gush about him whenever a friend brings him up. It oozes sex — there’s the obvious “Bite me babe/You make me love the pain/Break my bed, to make me wanna stay,” but there’s also that gorgeous, stuttering half-time beat and those trash-can tom rolls which accentuate one of the most gyroscopic choruses of the year. Tove Lo’s voice tends to fit silky-smooth pop-house better than Flume’s weepy hip-hop beats, but she snaps in when the pre-chorus cascades into an enormous dead spot right as it climaxes. The verses are kinda forgettable, but the chorus is everything I could ever want from a Flume song, so it very much outweighs the drab atmosphere of the rest of the song. Essential music for parties with more body mass than empty space.
[9]