The Singles Jukebox

In which we direct Alfred to /r/weezer…

[Video][Website]
[3.80]

Katherine St Asaph: Lindsey Stirling is Vanessa-Mae for the YouTube era, by which I mean she’s a violinist who plays to the pop and popularity markets. Where last album featured alt-rock women Lzzy Hale and Dia Frampton, Brave Enough is simultaneously a demographically craven slice of artists from your local Lite Pop station, and also really fucking bizarre. I mean, we’ve got — dear God this spread — country duo Dan & Shay, teenpop producers Tim James and Antonina Armato, EDM formulist Zedd, adult-alt drippers Christina Perri and Andrew McMahon Minus The Wilderness (“Cecilia and the Satellite”), and this, the oddest pairing of all: Weezer dude-in-chief Rivers Cuomo and Christian rapper Lecrae, via dance. As usual with this sort of thing, Stirling’s violin lines mimic synth lines you’ve heard before, somewhere. Lecrae doesn’t rap here so much as coach. Rivers Cuomo plays the role of Adam Levine. Why does this exist? I don’t know. But I do know that they took their conception of dance somewhere around sunsick late-summer 2010, which is a good place to take it from.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Well, here’s something: Rivers Cuomo with a violin for Weird Electropop Hook of the Season. In 2016 it can’t surprise Weezer fans, of whom there are, what, sixteen of them?
[4]

Iain Mew: It’s a mess in several directions at once, but it does at least successfully answer the question of how you can make a single with two vocalists where the violinist is the headline act.
[3]

Claire Biddles: The separate parts of this are so incongruous that I initially thought a rap video had started autoplaying in another open tab. The basic beats/vague striving-for-success lyrics/folk instrumentation combination really says ‘mid-table Eurovision’, which to be honest isn’t a phrase I ever thought I would associate with the singer from Weezer.
[2]

Edward Okulicz: Gross gross gross — why don’t I hate this? Everyone involved is using about half of their capacity. Stirling sounds like a guest on her own song, Lecrae tries to be inspiring in a time of metaphor rationing, and Cuomo has only the bravery but not the chops to give this the Patrick Stump-esque performance that would shoot it into the stratosphere. Yet I like its bombast made out of scraps of ability, for it sounding like I accidentally mixed a dodgy Balkan ballad from Eurovision with a dodgy dance pop thing from Eurovision. 
[6]

Will Adams: Lecrae’s opening query about sprints vs. marathons isn’t quite as hilarious as “fucking magnets, how do they work?”, but it’s almost there. About as laughable is the continued pairing Stirling’s violin with crunchy electro beats, a gimmick that became tired four years ago.
[3]

Katie Gill: Even if it’s nothing new in Stirling’s work, I loved the incorporation of the violin with the drop. Lecrae’s the standout here, having a grand time with that rap. And Rivers Cuomo does a decent job playing the Charlie Puth/Imagine Dragons on “Sucker For Pain” job of showing up and singing a chorus, even if he kind of swallows those high notes. But I wish there was more violin. I know the vocals & violins pieces are more likely to get airplay than her violin-only pieces, but I’ve always found her violin-only work to be a more accurate representation of her talent–probably because she can go full tilt there instead of having to balance her playing with other vocals.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Stirling says this song is influenced by the film Cool Runnings, which should tell you plenty: it’s full of would-be “uplift” and “inspiration.” As a certified Weezer hater of long standing, the voice of Rivers Cuomo is absolute nails on a chalkboard for me, which doesn’t help matters. At least Lecrae, though not having much to say, sounds decent. 
[2]

William John: When the leading artist’s contribution to a track can best be described as superfluous — “Don’t Let This Feeling Fade” would be no less functional without any violin, if perhaps somewhat more blockheaded and somewhat less likely to fit on the soundtrack to a roadtrip to ComicCon — it is hard to conclude anything other than that the track has failed to achieve its intended objective.
[1]

Brad Shoup: I feel like I should give this a high score just for being a six-degrees-of-pop nexus. This “4 Flat Tires” update gets us to Chaka Khan, Crazy Town, Paul Wall, Dia Frampton, and Simple Plan. Incredible.
[5]