The Singles Jukebox

OK, we’ll dance to it, but frowning…

[Video][Website]
[5.08]

Will Adams: It’s easier than ever to find disco from your favorite pop stars these days — why would you ever entrust it to these dullards?
[4]

Anthony Easton: This could play on the dance floor of Studio 54 in the club’s heyday — it’s that hedonistic, especially in that spit-out chorus. Full points for hedonism for hedonism’s sake. 
[8]

Cédric Le Merrer: This is the first Karmin song that hasn’t been agressively antipathic to my ears. The yacht-disco beat never threatens to veer off course, and the singing is very low on tics. If I didn’t know the band, I’d have guessed they were a harmless boring band. Keep it up guys !
[3]

Andy Hutchins: Nothing Amy Heidemann has done in her career has not annoyed me to some degree, and her delivery of this vocal verges on bleating on some of the 25ish repetitions of the titular phrase, so, well, keep doing what you do, lady. But, for once, that’s a shame. The production here, from a Ryan Williamson who seems to be nearly unknown, is pleasant disco-funk, and only the unnecessary background vocals, which make this seem like a “Glee” cover instead of an original song, mar it. I guess even Ester Dean couldn’t help write a Karmin hit with the easy conceit that is “a Karmin song titled ‘I Want It All.'”
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Karmin going neo-disco is utterly calculated and unsurprising. What’s moderately more surprising is that Ester Dean‘s doing it — or maybe not even that surprising, given her whopping handful of 2013 credits. (I know quantity of credits [or, um, clips] can be deceiving or otherwise explained, but I still often wonder if songwriter-on-the-cusp profiles like the New Yorker one have some kind of Heisenberg career-freezing effect.) The median of neo-disco tracks is much better than the median of goofy Berklee rap covers, but “I Want It All” doesn’t even reach the median. Disco breathed fire, but the brass here breathes old Yamaha keyboard presets. The licks are canned and Heidemann’s Kewpie-singing-“Suit and Tie” delivery unconvincing,  especially when her voice bursts snotty out of a pre-chorus that’s clearly Dean, which is hooky in the sense that it stands out and nags. Maybe that’s all confirmation bias, though. I mean, even giving it a [5] makes me want to fire myself.
[5]

W.B. Swygart: Focused, determined, sturdy, professional, but… the first thing I thought was “Cast of Glee does “Give Me the Night.” So I listened to “Give Me the Night,” and this one’s so far in its rear-view mirrors that it feels a bit embarrassing; where Benson’s got character, flair, charisma and style, this just has effort. The Past looms all over it, and it neither can nor will step out of the shadows. But, to be fair, the cast of “Glee” doing “Give Me the Night” would be worse.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: It would be a disservice to celebrate this as just being better than expected. This is a case where an outfit that, up until now, highlighted every bad aspect of YouTube-hosted culture and was just not good,stumbling across a good idea. It’s Karmin learning to not try so hard at being fun and instead actually relaxing a bit, and discovering that sometimes fake-slizzered rap can be left out of a track. But this would be a legit good song coming from anyone, not just viral schmucks. “I Want It All” is as limber as anything celebrated back in the “Summer Of Smooth,” and maybe even a little better than some of those highlights. It has those horns, a detail that gives this so much life. The lyrics are forgettable, but few of these throwback pop songs ever feature anything particularly revolutionary. It’s a surprise because “Karmin made THIS???,” but a solid number stripped of context.
[7]

David Sheffieck: I’d be happy if every dance track used glass bottle percussion as well as “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough.” But when, that percussion’s the most interesting part of the song, something’s gone terribly wrong along the way – this is fetish, not homage.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Well, it has no rapping, and it adds pep and verve to the “Take Back the Night”-Kool & the Gang blueprint. Imagine the English voices singing in Korean.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Who got the funk? And who let Karmin borrow it? Thankfully, a lot more bippy-boppy than rippity-rap, but too polite (especially in terms of singing) to convey any particular want, sexual or otherwise. Sterile hooks are still hooks, and this is a pretty good collection of them.
[6]

Brad Shoup: God, the system is amazing. It crushes dreams and hairstyles. There’s a good Kid Creole-style disco groove embedded in this amber equivalent; there’s an even better Phil Collins chorus closer to the surface.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: No, guys, we’ll do a disco song, it will be so much fun. Disco is fun. Think about how much fun we’ll have. Don’t worry, we’ll make sure everyone has fun.
[3]