The Singles Jukebox

Just to save ourselves from any “why did you do that do that do that do that” comments, mild spoilers for A Star Is Born below…

[Video]
[5.42]

Alfred Soto: To wish that Bradley Cooper the Director and Bradley Cooper the Writer had staged an Ally/Gaga performance of “Shallow” at the drag bar where Bradley Cooper the Actor as Jackson Maine falls in love is to wish the rotten timbers of the Hollywood-music complex would catch on fire. Early in A Star is Born, Maine knows Ally’s a songwriter from hearing two warbled excerpts in a convenience store parking lot; he’s obviously moved by her performance. Yet why he spends the rest of the movie blasting Ally for abandoning her art for performance is one of the muddles that got the picture “green lighted,” no doubt. People believe this shit in La La Land. Although Diane Warren’s name isn’t on “Shallow,” it’s as blank as any of her biggest hits. So at the end of the picture Ally becomes a huge, meaningless star because, co-write or not, she yielded to Maine’s ideas — a man’s idea — about sincerity. 
[3]

Taylor Alatorre: In a music-centric film, particularly one that wrestles with the divide between authenticity and artifice, the fictional hit songs by fictional big names have to sound real, like they were created to be played on car speakers and festival stages rather than on THX surround sound. More than almost any other song from A Star Is Born, “Shallow” sounds like it was created for a movie. This works to its favor in laying the foundations for an explosive climax, when Lady Gaga forgets she’s playing a character and tears the restraints off her voice, allowing it to transcend the confines of narrative. Before that, though, we have to suspend our disbelief enough to accept that “sha-ha-ha-hallows” is a legitimate singalong chorus. Similarly, Cooper’s spare instrumentation creates a thin illusion of battle-scarred profundity that’s shattered as soon as Gaga sings “ain’t it hard keeping it so hardcore.” No self-respecting tortured artist cliché would put something that campy on vinyl.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Diva lite attempts at working through a crisis of authenticity, played against Cooper’s post Dylan Americana borrowing, make a gooey mess; which wouldn’t be a crisis if it wasn’t so dull. For a song about depth, these borrowings never enter depth. 
[2]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is a [10] whenever Lady Gaga gets to unleash her full arsenal of vocal power and a [4] or so for the rest, which has far too much Mayer-esque faux-profundity for my taste, especially if it’s coming from Bradley Cooper. On the whole, it’s a [6], heavily weighed in favor of my residual good feeling towards ’70s folk rock.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: A Star is Born is getting Thinkpiece DEFCON Infinity Times Infinity levels of criticism for being rockist: the real singer-songwriter, turned prodigal pop star, saved by acoustic guitars. But the movie did not invent this plot. It is the Save the Cat of music-industry stories; I wouldn’t be surprised if a Hero’s Journey call-to-pop => dark night of the bangerz => strummy atonement chart exists in someone’s My Documents. Off the top: Music and Lyrics, whose pop star Cora Corman insists on sexing and appropriation-ing up a perfectly folky song (and it’s her insistence and fault, not the label’s). Or Pop Princess by Gingerbread author Rachel Cohn, whose protagonist Wonder Blake ends a Mandy Moore-esque pop career to (also like Mandy) go undercover as a coffeeshop singer-songwriter with her “real name” Anna Blake, which (also like Joanne) isn’t even her first name. The denouement takes place on her birthday, to the tune of soul singer Trina’s “Aretha-esque” rendition of “Happy Birthday to You”: “a complete contrast to the thin, manufactured voice of [Britney stand-in] Kayla.” There are dozens more of these stories, and there are dozens because to audiences they trigger a gut-level feeling of rightness — but the feeling comes not from truth but recognition of cultural myth, a conceptual stew of sex and pop and falsity and sin steeping at least since “the devil has the best tunes.” Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes and John Mayer and Charlie Puth practically own the charts. Most electropop women, from Miley to Kesha to Gaga herself, have released albums so conspicuously un-synthed they’re acoustic self-flagellation. Top 40 radio loves this; advertisers really love it. Two-thirds of “Shallow” is the campfire-strum template of “Love Yourself” or “Praying” or “Starving.” All this may seem like griping about the culture, not the song, but it is the song; the subtext is concealed about as much as DuJour’s “Backdoor Lover.” And even if you pretended it didn’t exist, you’d still have a major problem: Bradley Cooper is indistinguishable from any of the aforementioned hunks of yarl, and Gaga’s voice was made to tear through “Bad Romance,” not gutter tunelessly through “Thinking Out Loud.”
[3]

Pedro João Santos: Song-wise, A Star Is Born discerns authentic from manufactured, which when pushed to extremes just materializes into country-rock blurs and lightweight synthpop (lyrics exaggerated to the point of “Why’d you come around me with an ass like that?” Also, to have a Lady Gaga vehicle stand that side of the poptimism barricade is just cognitive dissonance.) But the best moments come from what the film perceives as the first, but really cross all the elements it often dismantles: full-blooded singing, gleaming hooks (commerciality?) and some verve (or “authenticity”). This country torch song is the most glaring specimen, a sort of “Don’t Stop Believin'” redux, with consecutive verses shifting from male to female agency, albeit trading stadium guitar ecstasy for twinkling licks and crashing drums. But where Journey go on a full odyssey culminating with the chorus-as-reward, the more economical “Shallow” does without a pre-chorus and reveals the chorus midway before its exacerbated repetition, the gap bridged by Gaga belting her way through. Not having the chorus merely as a payoff is what works best here and an ingenious move too –the first time, Gaga is getting into full steam, but she takes no prisoners launching into the second, with maximum fury and riveting force — it’s haunting. (Bradley’s contribution, designed as secondary, sounds well.) For a soundtrack single, the addiction stems from its elements of disruption — the makeshift transition is inventive, the ending is pivotal. It might start near the shallow, but it does more than enough to power through the mid-sea.
[8]

Josh Love: In the film, Jack and Ally’s piecemeal composition of “Shallow” is a highlight, more organic and lived-in than most of the rest of A Star is Born, which is largely paint-by-numbers despite its terrific performances. In fact, Jack bringing Ally onstage to help him sing “Shallow” for the first time provides possibly the most wonderful moment in the film; with the camera close on Ally’s face, we watch her conquer her stage fright, and a split second before she really starts belting there’s this look of sheer terror mixed with fuck-it-here-goes-nothing that passes over her face and it’s simply breathtaking. Now, if only “Shallow” was actually a good song! Considering it’s one of the emotional centerpieces of the film, it’s a shame it’s a clunker, sunk by dopey lyrics like “Tell me something girl / Are you happy in this modern world?” and the even worse “Is it hard keepin’ it so hardcore?”
[5]

Tobi Tella: I’m very surprised by the success of A Star Is Born in 2018. This is certainly not the musical climate that would encourage a movie musical soundtrack with a mix of country and rock, pop music, and old-school musical theatre balladry, but sometimes the music is just so good to deny it being popular. This song is gorgeous: I love how it opens with two back to back verses and how long and meandering they are, an amazing buildup for the explosive chorus and beautiful climax. Bradley Cooper is surprisingly smooth, and Lady Gaga is legitimately amazing — if this whole song was just four minutes of her runs I would still probably give it this score.
[8]

Katie Gill: One intensely impressive wordless riff can’t hide the fact that these lyrics are a collection of slightly hokey cliches and bizarre word choices (does anybody actually say “shallow” in the singular, not plural?) Still, “Shallow” succeeds by reminding me of how much I liked Joanne, having a riff that surpasses the fact it’s obviously designed to fit the trailer, and getting Lady Gaga one step closer to an EGOT. Because come on, this has “Falling Slowly” levels of Best Original Song bait written ALL over it.
[5]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Excepting the forced hurl that is the titular line of the chorus, the topline here is unassailable. The way in which “long-ing” breaks from the rhythmic structure to linger in one’s mind is a quiet moment of vulnerability. It comes to completion with what immediately follows: a quick locking into place of “for. change.” In those three words is a Hollywood movie in and of itself, a drama in miniature that might as well be the polysemic tagline for A Star is Born. Hearing Cooper and Lady Gaga’s verses back-to-back is thus crucial, not only in driving the narrative of the film, but in illuminating a mutual dissatisfaction that leads to actual change; oh how easy it is to drift into paralysis when feeling alone in such thoughts. With the song’s second half we hear the two belting out a chorus that’s half-invigorating, half-hysterical. On one hand, I can’t imagine a better way to capture the reckless pursuit of one’s dreams. On the other, it’s dangerously close to derailing the song completely. Secretly, it doesn’t really matter that “Shallow” sounds underwritten; this is a song that readily invites listeners to join in, and that final section of mangled catharsis is fun to sing along to. It’s silly, yes, but that only makes for better karaoke.
[6]

Matias Taylor: All along, Gaga’s not-so-secret weapon wasn’t her command of pop as a visual medium, her ability to blur personal and persona, or her sui generis, under-appreciated marriage of whimsy and the macabre (just listen to “Monster” again); it was her choruses. And this one’s her best in five years. Bradley holds his own admirably, revealing an affecting croon in the first part of the song, where it’s an earnest, lovely little country ballad; but once “I’m off the deep end” hits, that’s where we blast off into the stratosphere.
[8]

Stephen Eisermann: The magic of this moment comes from so much more than just the song. The performances, the crowd, the staging, the directing, and the extended version of the song all work together to create a magical cinematic moment that is striking and memorable and, truly, one of a kind. However, listening to the song back, I’m left mostly cold and wishing that I could rewatch the scene because, truthfully, the song — especially the radio edit — is basically just a well sung country-pop/arena rock MOR ballad that makes for a nice listen, but not much else.
[6]