The Singles Jukebox

Are we nostalgic for the dance-pop of 5 to 15 years ago? (Spoiler: not really, no)

[Video][Website]
[4.86]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Summery, early 00’s-esque Electropop that hops and bounces but never quite explodes, never quite takes you anywhere, but the melody in the chorus is totally selling it. Kudos for the vocal mixing; they’re making the most of Medina’s highly malleable voice.  
[5]

Alfred Soto: The Danish singer has a chalky undertone reminiscent of Jane Child, odder than the electrothud arrangement deserves. She’s not Katy Perry.
[4]

Cassy Gress: It’s not trance, but I’m reminded of 1998-era trance anyway, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor-style glittery disco too. In the verses, her vocal tone is weak enough that I worried that her upper range would be shouty. But I think it’s actually that the verses are a hair on the low end of her range, whereas that “Whyyyy” is squarely in her comfort zone. The whole thing feels low on bass, and I’m not sure whether that’s just my copy but a bassier rendition of this would bump the score pretty significantly.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Wow, are we five years removed from “Synd For Dig”? There’s no witchcraft here, just Medina’s scraped-out vocal on placeholding verses.
[5]

Will Adams: Medina has always been more compelling to me in Danish, her voice more able to clench the lyrics and wring emotion from them. I’m not sure hearing a translated version would do much good, though, as “We Survive” would still be stuck in an obsolete Body Talk template.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: “We Survive” is recognisably Medina, but it’s that more obvious and less subtle that it feels like the project’s been dumbed down, and I mean that in a different way to her releasing comparatively flat English versions of her Danish hits. This one just feels like anyone could have done it, lacking the thick fog of sadness of her best songs to begin with. Not that you’d expect au courant work from Biffco, who ply their sometimes-enjoyable trade in a time vacuum, but this just feels like she’s uncomfortably singing a song Ellie Goulding didn’t want the bones of for her album, taken because it’s good enough get an album project to completion. Which it probably is. But as an album-launching single? Nope.
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: In 2011 Medina sounded transcendent. Now this just sounds like one of the smarter songs from 2011.
[5]