The Singles Jukebox

Speaking of creating a backbeat using your palm and your kneecap…

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Pete Baran: “I’m crazy, me” says Crazy KT Tunstall from behind her guitar which has a sticker on it saying “You don’t have to be crazy to play this guitar, but it helps”.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: I feared from the title that this would make me cringe, something like a milder Colin Hunt. Thankfully it’s nowhere near that bad, mostly sounding friendly and discursive more than claiming to be wacky, and I quite like the beatboxy noises under the folky music. Trouble is, as a self-assessment it is too self-satisfied and thin.
[4]

Zach Lyon: Too pleasant to dislike, too much manufactured quirk to admire.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: On the weirdo spectrum, Tunstall is far closer to Norah than Diamanda, and among the Florences and Marinas who’ve taken over the designated quirky female singer-songwriter slots (the market can apparently only absorb about three), KT Tunstall sounds pretty damn normal. Not that normality is necessarily a flaw, or weirdness is a virtue. There’s plenty to like here: hiccups throughout the track like those from Camille’s excellent Le Fil, whistling perfectly in tune with plinking piano. And KT’s delivery is pleasant as usual, but it’s all wrong for the subject matter. “Weirdo” is too sproingy a word for something this placid. I’m not sure how else KT could have described herself — “freak”‘s sexual connotation overshadows the word, “different” is an euphemism, “quirky” is almost never a self-descriptor — but this isn’t it.
[5]

Iain Mew: I don’t think that “weirdo” is a description of KT that would readily spring to mind for most. Has the quirkiness takeover of the singer-songwriter sphere gone so far that such a transparent move to claim some of its territory is needed? Certainly it doesn’t sit entirely comfortably with the music which lurks somewhere between subtle and languid, unconcerned with the world moving on.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: Determining who is and who isn’t a weirdo is a fool’s errand — everyone thinks they are, and everyone else has a great shut-down argument for why they’re not. Ms. Tunstall’s supposed weirdness remains undetectable to this ear; her song is a midtempo coffeeshop shuffle, weird only by the straw-man standards that say anyone who makes music is a freak. Pleasant enough, but the furthest thing in the world from compelling. Which, let’s be honest, is all any of us want from weird in the first place, right?
[5]

Jer Fairall: The mixture of that skipping, off-kilter electronic rhythm with the gentle acoustic guitar reminds me of something off of a track by the muted German glitch-pop outfit Lali Puna — certainly a name I never expected to invoke in relation to KT Tunstall — but then KT’s vocals kick in and she drags the song back into the middle of the road where, contrary to the title, it belongs.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The title is correct. The tongue clicking, martial drumming, a humming Mellotron, whistling, and a chorus that gets sadder and quieter each time it circles around — Tunstall carves an aural and temperamental space from other folkies who can’t understand how self-pity only transcends itself when the singer can make it universal or when the production is sumptuous enough to justify itself.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: I’m not at all convinced KT is a weirdo, but I’m fairly convinced that actual weirdos somewhere will adopt this as their personal theme song, which is neat. In fact, maybe KT’s audience is weirdos, in general. (Though for what it’s worth, I don’t think Paul Simon’s fans were any crazier than he is. But his song was still way better.)
[5]

Asher Steinberg: Usually I find this sort of affirming folk-pop plain nauseating. But obviously this is a much higher class of affirming folk-pop singer than I’m used to. Rather than offer us a series of twee affectations, “Still a Weirdo” feels genuine, weathered, and lived-in (see the “all these years”). It’s also rather pretty. My only complaint is the hook, which to me is the only slightly false note in the whole thing inasmuch as there’s very little weirdness on display and hence turns the song from something quite appealing and honest to something that feels just a bit more like a manufactured attempt at making an entry in the time-honored “coming to wistful, rhapsodic terms with one’s nonexistent wild-and-craziness” genre. In other words, this song loses points with me for reminding me of my personal bete noire…
[7]

Josh Langhoff: Recalls Paul Simon not just in its title phrase, but also in its skillful modulation during the bridge. She should teach some songwriting classes, as long as she throws in this lesson: THE POINT OF “STILL CRAZY” IS THAT THE NARRATOR REALIZES HE’S NO LONGER CRAZY. And even then he’s pretty insufferable.
[2]

John Seroff: A precious puff pastry of white girl beatbox, featherweight melody and a lot of shrugs to go round, “Still A Weirdo” is a song in search of a mood. Bemused? Distracted? Dozy? Got me. That far-off whistle anchors it enough to keep it from blowing right off my iPod, but only barely. Perhaps best suited to roll katamari by?
[6]

Anthony Easton: Perfectly serviceable for what it is, but it is the least weird thing that she has produced, and this is not a woman who is known for her strangeness.
[4]