The Singles Jukebox

Self-explanatory?

[Video][Website]
[7.36]

Rebecca A. Gowns: What the hell was I saying yesterday about that Enrique Iglesias song being a bop? Now THIS is a bop. It sparkles and shifts; looping, but always delivering something new! Mvula showers me with ’80s-funk-inspired glory! This is the kind of invigorating single that prods me into a record store to purchase a real live physical album. Until then, I wait for more tunes like a kid waiting for the return of an ice cream truck at the beginning of summer.
[10]

Katie Gill: This song is bright, peppy, and overall fun. Yes, when you title your song after a Maya Angelou poem, there’s going to be comparisons. But as Mvula plows right into the chorus, as “oh my, she fly” and that bouncy, funky groove resonate in my head, I can’t help but perk up and bounce along. This is a feel-good song that admirably succeeds at making you feel great. It’s a self-affirmation song that exudes confidence and pep. The lyrics are a bit generic, but this is a self-affirmation song, y’all! Were you expecting specificity? It all comes together in that moment where everything slows down and Laura Mvula recites “you are phenomenal woman” over a chorus and, man, I felt like I could take on the entire world at that point.
[8]

David Sheffieck: Based on her debut, keytar is probably the absolute last instrument I would’ve expected Mvula to end up spotlighting in her work: it’s chintzy and cheap and thin sounding, and she’s anything but. But her instincts remain sound: it’s as much a contrast to her peerless vocal production and inimitable voice as stripped-down percussion was back then. Those vocals continue to be the place where she excels: lush and precise and dynamic, she wields them like a weapon no one else has ever forged.
[8]

William John: Before “Phenomenal Woman”, the most memorable piece of music of Laura Mvula’s for me was the first half of debut single “She”. The silence served as texture; each note floated in air with an extraordinary, radiant stillness. “Phenomenal Woman” is proof that when required, Mvula is quite capable of filling that space with colour and energy. Maya Angelou’s spirit breathes through this glorious celebration of femininity, resplendent with power and strength, and boasting both keytar and a clarion-call of a chorus that is as infectious as it is explosive.
[9]

Cassy Gress: I particularly love Mvula’s work because of (as we said before) the pipe-organ religious quality of her harmonies. But this hides them behind outgoing funk, and she seems to be a stronger fit for more understated work. At the same time, how can I begrudge the Angelou message? This is getting a [5] even though it feels like a cop-out to do so, because what I’d really prefer to do is rate this with an image or an emotion or something else non-numerical.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Mvula is clearly working towards becoming the UK’s answer to Janelle Monáe. Based on this funky little twist of lime, she might well get there in five years, give or take.
[6]

Alfred Soto: It’s taken a few songs for me to realize that her lead vocals can’t match her harmonies. Her songwriting either. “Phenomenal Woman” is an okay chorus in search of verses.
[4]

Peter Ryan: She’s not quite gone and made a sunny day jam — more like one for running the rain out of town. This gloriously accelerates the boundary-pushing she started on “Overcome”; it moves like nothing she’s done, and not a Nile in sight, instead affixing fidgety Prince synths to her trademark unearthly harmonies. She knows how great this is — she put it in the damn title. Someone Kickstart a comic book already.
[9]

Brad Shoup: Mvula lets it whip, sends in those evening clouds of harmony to boot. “Oh my/she flies,” she shouts, sounding like a cross between Kool Keith and someone gazing up at Superman. The track dips into a bit of Grace Jones martiality before she lashes the canvas with a series of awestruck bgvs.
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: “Out of the garden and onto the dancefloor” is the obvious tagline here. Truthfully, though, I don’t see this as that huge of a departure from Mvula’s debut, as she was already working within such a wide range of black music genres that it was perhaps inevitable she would hit upon ’80s electro-funk at some point. Her genteel sensibilities subsume but don’t drown out the beat’s thrumming potency, and the bridge has all the panache of a superhero’s power-up theme. My feelings toward the chorus vocals vary depending on the time of day — sometimes they hit me like a white-hot jolt of energy, other times they feel like a deferential nod toward latter-day FIFA soundtracks. Not that I’d be complaining if this found its way onto FIFA 17.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Who woulda thought: the most anodyne of her BBC Sound Of class (they blur together, one amorphous mass the shade of PR) would summon up more funk than everyone trying to summon up funk — i.e. most everyone? Anyone paying attention to Mvula’s career arc, that’s who woulda. But sometimes I still forget.
[8]