The Singles Jukebox

Lilly Gray: Jessica, to me, always was stylized as the somewhat nicer Regina George of Girl’s Generation, in that I could imagine her hitting me with her car and being sympathetic about it but also subtly cataloging the damage to the fender of her Mercedes. This has little to no bearing on her new single, except that it’s an uncontrollable facet of her public persona as an idol, now in a state of flux. Jessica left Girl’s Generation in 2014 in very public, brutal fashion, and once the queen has been dethroned, it’s hard to tell what will happen next. Luckily, for anyone who was worried about her being JYJ’d, Jessica seems barely pressed about any of this. It’s hard not to bring this past to bear on “Fly,” but Jessica’s pop dance song is less teary breakup letter than a juggernaut of self-confidence that seems to ask, what girl group? oh, that was so long ago! Pass the sugar, please; can I interest you in a sample of my upcoming beauty collection? It’s the divorcee lunching and laughing gaily, surrounded by friends, while her ex sweats at a hotdog stand. Jessica’s powerhouse return aside, it is not especially fun for other people to listen to. The sentiment of chasing your dreams and finding your own self-worth is recognizable to any audience, but her voice sounds strained throughout, really pushing the limits of that soprano, and the dance part of this track never arrives. The rap is oddly sweet until it gets to a garbled Steph Curry name-drop; one gets the idea that Jessica is waiting for him to get out of her studio. In any case, though I did not enjoy this song at all, I did enjoy hearing Jessica again. 
[4]

Alfred Soto: I’m a sucker for a good whoa-whoa, and I’d ignore the piano tinkle if I could. But — oof. Fabolous wanders in after a nice long nap.
[4]

Patrick St. Michel: Vaguely inspirational pop that imagines “what if Taylor Swift’s ‘Blank Space’ was really boring?” Which, fine, but that Fabolous verse is such nothing, a sinkhole marring an otherwise mediocre song.
[2]

Cassy Gress: I complain about rappers in need of metronomes a lot, and Fabolous spends his twelve bars slowly meandering off the beat, like when your turn signal just barely doesn’t match up to the car’s in front of you. Whether this actually sampled the “Back II Life” drum beat or is just reminiscent of it, that and the “Spread your wings and fly (oh-oh)” parts are rather earwormy. I just wish Jessica’s voice sounded less constrained; she’s a little bit Sister Mary Robert.
[6]

Katie Gill: It’s really interesting how a song can sound new and dated at the same time. I’m getting some major late 90s/early 2000s vibe from the harmonies and the chorus (S Club 7, R Kelly, 98 Degrees, Hilary Duff, there were a LOT of “spread your wings and fly” sort of songs during that time). That part works well — and hell, if I had to rate the song just on Jessica’s part alone it’d get a lot higher. It’s cute and inoffensive but wonderful, like a video of an otter. It’s when a wild rapper appears and Fabolous phones in a rap break that the song screeches to a confusing halt. There’s no getting around it, it’s not very good and the flow comes to an absolute halt.
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: Jessica checks all the boxes with choruses built to help you rise up from whatever getting in your way as far as traditional ballads go, but “Fly” is only meant to hold you over temporarily. While that might work for a real advice, it’s a different story for a pop song.
[5]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Cute albeit vapid pop that sadly fails at every opportunity to sound meaningful. The fact that Fabolous actually ends up dragging behind the beat in the second part of his verse sums it up for me. 
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: Blandly “inspirational” pop with a saccharine aftertaste and a WTF G-rated cameo from Fabo.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Well, the piano went airborne at least. Meanwhile, the producer’s trying to crashland Fabolous’s bars.
[3]

Taylor Alatorre: Save for the tight snare sound and bonus Fab verse, I swear I’ve heard this before in English. No, I’m not just referring to “Blank Space.” I’m talking about the type of music you hear when you’re getting your cavities filled, or when your dad accidentally switches to the CCM station thinking it’s KISS-FM and refuses to change it back for the rest of the road trip. It’s music that’s designed to be as pacifying and inoffensive as possible, and I’ve usually dismissed it as empty pablum. But the part of me that craves divine certainty in the face of a chaotic universe — which is in fact most of me — has always had a secret affinity for the inspirational swells and buoyant sentiments and “whoa-oh-ohs” that are adult contemporary’s bread and butter, so long as they aren’t overdone. As a debut solo single, “Fly” definitely doesn’t provide a viable blueprint for Jessica’s future, but in the meantime it provides a necessary service for nervous wrecks and faux-cynics like me.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Not coulda-been-Britney Jessica (Folcker), but a member of Girls Generation with a track that sounds exactly like an inert, but equally cliched, take on “Roar.” Man, wouldn’t it suck if you had wings that weren’t meant to fly?
[2]