The Singles Jukebox

Another collaboration brought to you by the law of large numbers (with dollar signs in front of them).

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[5.29]

Anthony Easton: Can we have more Miranda and less Keith? I mean, this song is a piled up collection of cheap rhymes, bad cliches, and nostalgia that’s just not believable. That the production leans towards Keith and overwhelms Miranda just makes it that much more tin-eared. 
[3]

Alfred Soto: I can’t understand why someone who looks so good and plays such decent guitar suffers from terminal blandness, but at least he’s no blander than Mr. Miranda Lambert himself, aka Blake Shelton.  
[4]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Some songs are nigh-on impossible to hear beyond expertly triggered pleasure points: familiar vocal twangs, nostalgic subject matter, booming choruses swooping in on a listener. “We Were Us” has all of these and not much else, but the triggers go off so efficiently that resistance is futile: you are ours, Urban and Lambert might as well be purring.
[7]

Scott Mildenhall: If country were a bigger deal across its sphere, this would make a brilliant Eurovision entry. Perhaps it would need a bigger ending, but it’s about three minutes long, attention-grabbingly stompy and has an audible dynamic between the performers that if translated to a visual one would afford it an all-important edge (not that it would necessarily need it). It also brings to mind The Go! Team at the start, and that’s scarcely a bad thing.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Would that the economy of explanation applied to the drums. They make a terrible slapping, punctuation on a yellowing pad. But before! Miranda savors the pictures over a gentle banjo lattice. Then BAM come the drums, and there’s no room to flash back, just this frantic repeated smack upside my head.
[5]

Patrick St. Michel: It all sounds great — both Keith Urban and Miranda Lambert boast voices that are easy on the ears and “We Were Us” has a good bounce — but it also comes off as a bit faceless. Like, for something featuring Miranda Lambert, you’d think this would have more character. Instead, it is a pretty standard “young love, that was cool” song.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: “Wild at Heart” with the benefit (or otherwise) of hindsight gleaned from love from long ago, and the deficit of awful drums from a production trend from about the same time period. Not bad, though.
[6]