The Singles Jukebox

And yet the score is anything but…

[Video]
[8.14]

Alfred Soto: A Latin pop attempt at Lana Del Rey languor, but funnier, schlockier, and faster. Mon Laferte understands how to hold the audience’s attention, and she can pout and wink at the same time. Por favor manténgase alejado de las puertas.
[8]

Julian Axelrod: It’s an age-old pop conundrum: Did Los Espookys spark my insatiable desire for moody Spanish rock, or does this sax-soaked Chilean new wave track make me wanna catch up on Los Espookys? Either way, this song is the moodiest of all moods, and I need to see Julio Torres perform an exorcism to it immediately.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: From the title (“Shit Song”) down, this pastiche of film music tropes works because it presents personal drama to the scale where the fate of the world sounds in the balance, dancing on the borderline between completely serious and ridiculous. Throwing in a sax break doesn’t resolve which it is, nor does Mon Laferte’s chorus which alternately plunges, soars, triumphs and wallows. I can’t even begin to imagine the film this might make sense as a theme for, but I bet it’s exhausting to watch. Better to get all the good bits in three and a half minutes, always.
[9]

Vikram Joseph: This is so cinematic; from the playfully ominous spaghetti-western guitars to the storms-sweeping-across-the-plains Eurovision-pitch melodrama of the chorus, “Cancion de Mierda” sounds born to soundtrack a scene of ironically-detached noirish violence in a Tarantino film or a new episode of Killing Eve. My entry-level Spanish is nowhere near good enough to parse much from the lyrics, but even so, Mon Laferte creates a vivid atmosphere off the back of the music alone.
[7]

Iain Mew: The ’60s torch vibe is a well-worn enough path that this initially makes me think of the last few decades of takes on it as much as the originals (Anna Calvi and Arctic Monkeys both come to find). The lightness of touch of all the pretty detail of the verses is enjoyable timeless, anyway. Then there’s the chorus. Laferte and the melody turn up the intensity to a level nothing indicated even the possibility of before, and suddenly unmoored from the familiar, the song takes on a thrilling new sweep.
[9]

Will Adams: A master class in expertly timed crescendos — from the chorus’s soar to the saxophone-led bridge launching the song into a new key — “Cancion De Mierda” shows it’s possible to elevate noir pastiche to something truly exciting.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: A song that is many things: A) Sumptuous, moody, immense drama that instantly leapfrogs even Susanne Sundfør in the dreamcast Bond theme standings; B) The sequel to Cathy Davey’s The Nameless that I knew I’d missed, but not till now this fervently; C) A song with a sense of humor, which comes of being called “Shit Song”; D) A song with a sense of bravery, which comes of the same.
[9]