The Singles Jukebox

Fortunately, no, wait, unfortunately this re-release isn’t #brozen

[Video][Website]
[3.00]

Edward Okulicz: Somehow two years after the fact, this song has become big in the US, restarting its heretofore unfinished business of wiping its bland **authentic** mediocrity all over the radio, like a cockroach finding the one part of your kitchen that hasn’t been sprayed and had traps deployed in it. No doubt attempting to sing with wisdom beyond his years, he sounds instead like James Blunt trying to write a Hozier song.
[2]

Iain Mew: As a belated post-Grammy US hit, this is now two years too late for the Great Let (x) Go Boom instead of just one. It still sounds like Passenger’s contribution to that trend with the tum-tee-tum edges worn down to make it less annoying, but even more boring.
[3]

Cassy Gress: Took me a minute to remember where I know this guitar from — I think it’s a cross between Buckley’s “Hallelujah” and Radiohead’s “House of Cards”.  I don’t want to be one of those people who rails on about authenticity and “real music”, whatever that is, and I’m well aware of the well-worn argument about the people on Youtube and Bandcamp and Soundcloud, performing at open mics and singing in the shower and whatnot, those are the real musicians, man.  But all I can hear listening to him, is that his vocal style sounds so affected.  He’s got a fast vibrato, and his vocal tone meanders between a chilly murmur and Hozier, and it meanders so quickly between the two that he just seems to be trying to imitate all of his influences — use the Hozier stamp on the loud passionate yelping parts, use the whispery stamp next, insert tab A into slot B.  Which, we all do that to some extent, and maybe he’ll improve with time, but it doesn’t need to be so blatant.
[5]

Will Adams: Ooh, mid-00s TV drama end-of-episode fodder! Which, it should be noted, is rarely a problem with me.
[6]

Alfred Soto: As those guitar ripples and James Bay’s powdered sugar voice descend like quiet snow, I want to murder parents who encourage their children to play music.
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: Recently this gangly piece of UK-based guitar kudzu was being rather bitchy about black representation at the Brits, so I have half a mind to cut him down off the strength. But thankfully, his music doesn’t him do him much favor. His falsetto is a garbage range, full of phlegmy warbles, sharp notes and mistaking vibrato for human emotion. He’s already given up his more strident rockiness for Ed Sheeran-style coffee table music, but he lacks anything more than a balladeer’s indulgence. Maybe this soulless noodle was a bit upset by the fact that no matter how much he aspires to genuine power as a singer-songwriter, he’s betrayed by his own ineptitude, and had to take it out on people who feel cheated by reasons outside their own mediocrity. You can feel a miniscule amount of sympathy for that sort of neurosis, but not enough to pretend this song doesn’t suck.
[1]

Brad Shoup: This guy’s so anodyne we should give him the Best New Artist Grammy retroactively.
[2]