The Singles Jukebox

After three songs covered here, their combined score has now reached [4.09]…

[Video]
[1.50]

Will Rivitz: The epsilon-delta definition of a limit is, in layman’s terms, generally as follows: if one plugs a number x into a function, that function’s limit as x approaches some other number a is L if, no matter what arbitrarily small number ε you can come up with, you can find some x near a such that x plugged into the function is within ε of L. This is somewhat confusing, so a non-math example to illustrate: Let x be a band, and let the a that x approaches be Lukas Graham (for notation’s sake, we’ll call it the Graham limit). We find that the limit L of the function f(x), as x approaches a, is in fact negative infinity. To understand why this is, consider any arbitrary ε, and we find that no matter how low f(ε), the Graham limit allows for a lower f(x). For example, if we set ε fairly low, at, say, Five For Fighting, we find that a lower f(x) is possible. If we set ε even lower, at, for example, Meghan Trainor, we find that a lower f(x) is still achievable. In this sense, “Love Someone” is an effectively didactic example, as it uses an almost unimaginably low ε — Train, in this case — and demonstrates that the Graham limit is lower still. Math is wonderful, isn’t it?
[0]

Andy Hutchins: The exchange rate on Lukas Graham members to Jason Mraz is 3:1, in case you have interest in playing what I’m sure is the booming market for sub-Sheeran wedding dreck. (Play a song that includes the sniffing refrain “You’ve probably never loved someone like I do” at your wedding at your own peril.)
[1]

Julian Axelrod: As long as dads are having first dances at their second weddings, Lukas Graham will have a career.
[3]

Alfred Soto: Well, isn’t he the hateful little shit: she should learn to love like he does. It’s not Graham Cracker’s first time stepping on a rake. Ed Sheeran is Otis Redding. 
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: Justin Bieber’s “Love Yourself” is not improved by 50,000 times more singing.
[1]

Jonathan Bradley: Imagine I had just fallen head-over-heels for someone. You know, right in the mushy marshes of new affection. A time in which I had been so disarmed by this new presence in my life that I grasped for sincerity and earnestness to account for it; a time when hearing such sentiments drawn with careless and vague strokes would make them seem nonetheless truthful and important. Even at such a time, I think that I would find Lukas Forchhammer’s quivering soul tenor to be impossibly, intolerably weedy.
[2]

Nicholas Donohoue: I could revert to my hate mindset and be a pedantic, over-intensive jerk, but the only thing that needs said is Lukas Graham should refrain from long, high notes.
[3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Jason Mraz-type schlock that’s too boring to hate passionately. Since the music’s too boilerplate, the lyrics come through with some solipsistic narcissism. Terrible, but easy to laugh at, which makes it a little less terrible.
[2]

Taylor Alatorre: All three of Lukas Graham’s self-titled albums feature the same painting of a nude woman on their cover but with a different color palette, like a lazier, hornier version of Weezer. The painting, entitled Damen med flaskerne (Lady with the Bottles), is Lars Helweg’s depiction of Swedish-Italian actress Anita Ekberg, best known for her starring role in La Dolce Vita. Painted in 1992 but based on a 1956 Playboy photograph, it’s become a minor cultural touchstone in Denmark; the hard rock band September also used the artwork for their 1995 album Many a Little. The original resides in Copenhagen’s Cafe Wilder, which Lukas Graham’s lead singer often visited as a child. He says the album art is intended as a tribute to his childhood, as well as a representation of the band’s music: “naked and beautiful.” Each of these facts is more interesting than anything found in this song, which devalues love by implying that yours isn’t genuine unless you can squeeze a saccharine pseudo-devotional out of it.
[2]

Alex Clifton: Is this the worst song Lukas Graham have ever recorded? No. That’s either “7 Years,” “Strip No More,” or their newest single, which is an anti-suicide ballad (?) that involves the line “my stage show can light up the clouds,” because somehow it has to have the self-aggrandizing turn that most Lukas Graham songs have. It depends on the day which song I hate more. But “Love Someone” is insipid and boring and clichéd and bad. It’s like if the sappiest Jason Mraz song (also incidentally named “Love Someone”) had a baby with Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect” and a guy with less charisma than Pat Monahan tried to reassure you his Hefty bag of love is real. It’s meaningless. It’s supposed to be tender and kind but I can’t get past the fact that this is the guy who once sang “HOW COME YOU DON’T STRIP NO MOOOOOOOOORE” so goddamn enthusiastically. Moreover, this song made me realize why I specifically hate Lukas Graham: they commit the sin of believing they’re the only people in the world who have ever experienced feelings. “You’ll probably never love someone like I do,” Lukas Forchhammer sings, and in that moment I know he believes every word he says. It’s the same story they’ve told with every other song: my emotion is the strongest and the worst and the most bad and the most valid, and you’ll never understand. Lukas Graham have long left a bad taste in my mouth and this song makes me hate them more, to the point where it’s a personal insult that Lukas Graham keeps releasing music. If they really loved someone other than themselves, they’d leave us alone.
[0]