The Singles Jukebox

First official solo record from a major pop songwriter with a Wiki biography that goes to show how much Wiki editors care about major pop songwriters…

[Video][Website]
[4.88]

Iain Mew: I guess when you’re a top pop writer you can make a chorus just by bolting together “Royals” and “Chandelier”. I don’t mean that as snark; this thing is pleasantly stuck in my head and has lived on beyond the resemblance. The only problem is that she approaches singing everything else like one long continuation of the chorus, and hasn’t given it enough strength to support the personality.
[6]

David Sheffieck: Appealingly off-kilter in lyric and sound, with the punchline delivery of “Knock knock who’s there / Me” a particular favorite. But I can’t get over how much the first line of the chorus sounds like the hook for “Royals,” a similarity so distracting it’s impossible for me to lose myself in Wroldsen’s world of Star Wars and kites.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: There’s something really teeth-on-edge about hearing a Scandinavian trill out about “bougie bitches” and the plain ugliness of her hammy “’cause I am a little bit bisexual!” The latter in particular sounds like a line delivered by some plastic-chinned failed male soap opera star rather than any sort of casual off-the-cuff remark of eccentricity. This mess of a track was already a strange rally cry to be yourself but at the same time, what is identifiable here in this Erector-Set mess of production and worn-out sayings?
[1]

Anthony Easton: Ambitious and a little unhinged, Wroldsen’s desires seem to be constructed for a market who would have more patience for tweeness than “Aliens” seems to.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: “Aliens” gets right what, say, “Chandelier” and “Air Balloon” got wrong. And it’s because, not despite, its silly gimmicks like the “Knock knock / who’s there / me!” bit keep it moving in a snappy fashion. The chorus is still mildly annoying when she does go high, mind you. Wroldsen also sounds uncannily like Martina Sorbara out of Dragonette.
[6]

Alfred Soto: She does go high and high, and that’s the trouble: the song doesn’t come down, Wroldsen won’t stop keeping to the same pitch.
[3]

Scott Mildenhall: The breaking of the fourth wall as declaration of presence is a narrative in itself. That ascension from fence-sitting to fearlessness is as palpable as the ambition it gives Ina Wroldsen the spirit to assert, and with all the weirdness fulfilment would bring. One of the literal articulations of that — seemingly referring to the woman Google thinks she is — borders bobbins (as do the Mike Read homages, too), but otherwise it’s a delirious drift into the ether, holding on to letting go.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: The hook — about kites capable of breaching the atmosphere, punctuated by a vague youuuuu — works well at selling this as a radio-ready number, but it also distracts from the real intrigue here. This is Ina Wroldsen, songwriter to big names all over the globe, debating whether to step out from behind the scenes to take a stab at landing on the album cover rather than the production notes. It’s an interesting struggle, even if Wroldsen has written far better songs for other artists over 2014.
[7]