The Singles Jukebox

Jukeboxers Chase Hooks.

[Video][Website]
[5.29]

Katherine St Asaph: Ingrid Michaelson is another act whose fanbase is mostly ignored by critics — her album, despite going top 5 on the Billboard 200, was reviewed by basically nobody — but I’ve never had much time for her. It bothers me that the industry’s female singer-songwriter slot — to the industry, a small slot it is — consistently goes to the most anodyne, chirpy, uninteresting artists, like Aimee Mann if her album titles weren’t like Fucking Smilers but more like Hey, Cheer Up! Smiling’s Kinda Fun! This is no exception. It glistens like a Pledge-varnished park bench, and the fizzy backing vox are nice, but it’s a breakup song, which I guess is supposed to be arch? My favorite breakup song of all time is Stina Nordenstam’s “Get On With Your Life,” which is eerily like a minor-key flip of this (the piano’s not dissimilar), if it were honest: “all over the world they get out of bed, love / dies every second” — the enjambment is critical — “and I try to get up, and I try to move, but this thing won’t let me / it’s heavy as a man’s body on you.” “Girls Chase Boys” is a breakup song for breakups so blithely unemotional you don’t need songs. I’d be a better person if I had those. But does anyone?
[3]

Alfred Soto: It’s got a sharp electro-stutter hook, and “let’s not make it harder than it has to be” is a lyric for our times, but the insistent falsetto tears at Michaelson’s emotive and physical capabilities.
[6]

Crystal Leww: Ingrid Michaelson is one of those acts with a larger-than-you’d-imagine and rabidly devoted fanbase despite the lack of large scale commercial and critical attention paid to her music. One of my oldest and best friends is a part of that fanbase. She’s loved Michaelson for years now, since back when we used to live in the same cul-de-sac in high school. I asked her why she loved Michaelson, and it seems to come down to a combination of lyricism and consistent aesthetics. After all this time, six studio albums and fifteen (!) songs featured on Grey’s Anatomy, Michaelson still loves to spin her little webs of words and still sounds remarkably similar to how she did in 2006. The circularity of “girls chase boys chase girls” and the stubbornness of “don’t call me / I won’t call you, too / let’s just call it over” leave an impression. The clap-stomp-plink-clash percussive quality of all of Michaelson’s instrumentation isn’t quite trendy, but it doesn’t sound out of date either. “Girls Chase Boys” has a niche appeal and will continue to satisfy those who love Michaelson. As for me, I’m suddenly reminded of hot summer nights sitting curbside clutching my knees and listening to Sandra Oh freak out from tiny laptop speakers.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: She’ll be great on the 2016 Lilith Fair club-tour reboot. (That’s not a compliment. This song is completely empty.)
[3]

Mallory O’Donnell: A blithe little tune that could have been so much more than the sum of its parts instead of just exactly the sum of its parts, unlike other banal breezes like “Happy.”
[5]

Megan Harrington: Is today’s theme TV songs? Michaelson’s mostly a big deal via her status as the woman who writes “that song that was playing when,” and co-writer Trent Dabbs is similarly most well known for his TV placements (especially if you watch a lot teen girl shows, which, obviously, I do). It’s hard to stop yourself from guessing, blind item style, what show they were aiming for with this single. Seems about right for ABC’s upcoming Selfie. 
[7]

Anthony Easton: All the romantic sourness of collapsed desire and the failure of language to contain it, folded into a smooth, sweet little pop confection. Sort of like sour cherry soft serve. 
[7]