The Singles Jukebox

The world only needs one Adele.

[Video][Website]
[5.25]

Scott Mildenhall: There isn’t much cohesion between Smith and Stormzy’s parts here, which somewhat undermines its duet potential. There seems to be more investment in making it all sound so thick and opaque than anything as grand as when two worlds collide, and the allusion to “Hometown Glory” isn’t even as subtle as the ones in the first part of this sentence. On the plus side, it could be a lot more boring. Jorja Smith seems to have something, and “minus my mum” is a high-level caveat.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Jorja going straight for Adele territory so early in her career in some respects feels like prime territory for thinkpieces on privilege as well as an overeager rush into MOR listenership that with the addition of Stormzy’s ponderous mutterings is a strictly Anglocentric sort of dive for pop stardom. And should she succeed here despite the identikit approach of the record, it’d be a gambit worth taking. Yet nothing here is too remarkable to clutch on from the singer that could designate this song from the many legions of unnecessary navel-gazing ballads that’s threatening to overwhelm this early part of the year.
[3]

Ryo Miyauchi: The Adele mold of Jorja Smith’s follow-up to “On My Mind” plays to none of her strengths. Maybe she recognized what a task it can be to capture the spontaneous magic that made her Preditah collaboration so special. Yet not only did she resort to a dull alternative, the tired format ends up watering down her once-punchy confrontations.
[4]

Crystal Leww: Someone please bring back Preditah.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: An over-sumptuous Gothic cathedral of a song, ghostly background soprano and all, and the kind of shameless dramatics Emeli Sandé might have made had she not embraced the New Boring. The song’s way too big for Jorja’s voice — she’s about 20 years too young for the diva largesse “I wouldn’t mind if I was less important” demands — and way too melodramatic for Stormzy’s everyday dirtbag. But “I’ve got you to let me down” — a Katharina Nuttall-esque line — against this backdrop is plenty wrenching.
[7]

Alfred Soto: The English version of the worn American rapper-accompanied-by-female-conscience is solemn and ready for camp memes. It’s ridiculous that Jorja Smith couldn’t do more with “I’ve got you to let me down” than sing it as if wringing the irony out of it is the point, and equally ridiculous to rap as if someone handed him the script as he entered the studio.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Lovely, dramatic R&B ballad with a rap bridge — when’s the last time you heard that? The strings give this a heightened edge, almost Bond theme-like, and Stormzy subtly cuts through it.
[6]

Hazel Southwell: My first thought on hearing this was that I can’t wait for the High Contrast remix. But that’s just anything with piano in the background. This is an exceptional, massive thing – the central line of the first verse, literally setting the entire thing up on a cold, lonely pedestal in a crumbling studio once gorgeous with the sensual, is sometimes I wouldn’t mind if I was less important. A little less pressure, a little more sensation – someone who could walk away from you and feels all the more real for it, a fluttering pulse stirring under Stormzy’s verse before Jorja’s painful, warm vocal kicks back in. Gorgeous.
[9]