The Singles Jukebox

Well, at least we weren’t getting our palms read.

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[3.86]

Anthony Easton: White’s seminal interpretation of Tarot suggests the Queen of Swords represents widowhood, female sadness and embarrassment, absence, sterility, mourning, privation and separation. The card is blue, instead of the bleak grey of the rest of the suite. This has a kind of hermetically sealed winter coldness, but I think Menzel interprets it badly and makes it a work of genial uplift and technique, over a dull dance beat. But, without the beat, that’s her work for Disney and Broadway too. 
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Katherine St Asaph: Unsure what to make of this amalgam of “Bleeding Love,” ’90s lite-rock radio shimmer, ’10s lite-rock radio na-nas and heys, ’10s stan-Twitter references to slayage and Big Elphaba Notes, I drew a card: The Sun reversed, i.e. “just enjoy this uncomplicated happiness and stop overanalyzing it, you critic.” (Unlike the actual Queen of Swords, which is the critic: perhaps the most un-pop card in Tarot.) I’m gonna take that as a sick own, and grade charitably.
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Katie Gill: “Let It Go” run through the stylings of Sara Bareilles, the “na-na-na’s” of sing-alongs and the really needless high notes of her once co-star Kristin Chenoweth. You are a belter, Idina! You are famous for belting, you didn’t need to insert a Cheno note in your song! I also hope that someone with a bit of tarot knowledge reviews this song because I have no idea what the Queen of Swords symbolizes and I’m really worried that Idina has no idea as well.
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Alfred Soto: The title has a Florence + the Machine grandeur, but after the chorus comes around the first time I realize the grandeur is pomp and the song a Summer Olympics empowerment anthem.
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Thomas Inskeep: As I’d frankly expect from a huge-voiced Tony winner, “Queen of Swords” is a big big BIG empowerment anthem, sung hugely by Menzel, who’s certainly got the voice for the material. Unfortunately, she’s done no favors by the limp, Adult Top 40 production, reminiscent of John Shanks levels of mediocrity.
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Will Adams: If we’re not counting an unreleased Bonnie McKee song, there’s been a surprising lack of pop songs that capitalize on the “omg yas queen slay” parlance that’s overtaken stan Twitter as of late. (We have passing uses, sure, but nothing that makes it the focal point.) So here we have Idina Menzel taking the baton sword from McKee, and I begin to suspect why we haven’t heard much else on the subject. The video is hilariously awkward, the music exists in a Bermuda Triangle of Katy Perry, Rachel Platten and OneRepublic, and the message is accordingly watered down. “Queen of Swords” is a boldfaced attempt to take Menzel out of the musical theater box “Let It Go” seemingly confined her in. Which isn’t a negative on its own, but the slapdash approach sure gives her hand away.
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Brad Shoup: Menzel breaks off some Céline-style intonation in service of some lively cadences. The toms hammer at a steadily inspirational clip; they get really lively on a Katy-style breakdown. But it’s not hard to imagine the calculation at play: mysticism and slaying are only just past their peak; why not pre-write the reception?
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