Thursday, February 25th, 2016

Lissie – Don’t You Give Up On Me

As long as you don’t give up on us, Liss…


[Video][Website]
[6.00]

Brad Shoup: If this were a Death Cab for Cutie song I’d probably overrate it.
[5]

Will Adams: Lissie’s solo material has never quite hit with me like her dance collaborations with Morgan Page, which seems strange considering Page’s work isn’t too far removed from her guitar-based folk-rock. “Don’t You Give Up On Me” strikes the midpoint between the two. It shares the propulsion of a dance song, with a steady 4/4 kick and a soaring chorus melody. As ever, though, Lissie’s unique voice stays at the center to intensify the color of an otherwise sepia-toned surrounding.
[7]

Alfred Soto: With the bass drum hinting at disco country, a solo hinting at late ’80s Rosanne Cash, and a star tripping lyric about eternity and some such nonsense, “Don’t You Give Up on Me” sounds a remix away from topping the dance chart. A mushy vocal though.
[6]

Scott Mildenhall: This is proper Radio 2, sandwich-filling for PopMaster stuff, filable right alongside The Pierces and the Chrissie Hynde single with the dog in the video. There’s only about half of the foreboding fog Lissie brought to her “Go Your Own Way” cover, but it’s making hay on the same hills. As if by a haunted Carpenters, it’s a taste of bitter honey, but perhaps not one potent enough to commit to memory.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: I’ve sat listening to this for…yikes, how did 30 minutes slip by so fast?…but I can’t think of anything to write about this beyond “pleasant enough.” Which says more about me, of course! But yeah, pleasant enough.
[5]

Jibril Yassin: The urge to write this off as paint-by-numbers is strong; the chord progression snakes through in a manner that’s not too comfortable but it’s not exceptional. Yet the chorus hits, as strange as it is to hear the wash of guitars slide off into the air mesh with that dance groove, it works. It’s MOR with a bit of melodramatic heft — still a shame the song feels so content to stay in cruise control.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: I don’t want to give up on Lissie because her chorus is so likeable, but apart from that chorus, it sounds like she’s given up on the song. I love the 70s soft-rock guitars and the polite crunch of the beats, but it’s only for a few lines that Lissie cuts through to making me care.
[5]

Cassy Gress: Years ago I used to knock myself out at night by putting on my headphones and listening to particularly drifty songs that I knew.  This song isn’t drifty, but the line “are ya swimmin’ in the stars / breathin’ in eternity” is basically all of that summed up in nine words and something in my brain leaped up when I heard it.  This is a dark forest campfire song, and I don’t mean that in a singalong way, I mean that it sounds the way the flames look as they lick the indigo horizon and dissipate into smoke.
[7]

Reader average: [8] (2 votes)

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