The Singles Jukebox

We start the week off by winding back the clock…

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[4.86]

Stephen Eisermann: I love the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and I’m a huge fan of the way the show parodies different styles of music. The songs are enjoyable, too, as they are usually pretty funny, and it’s always nice to feel nostalgic when listening to the various styles of music. Basically, what I’m saying is, this has to be a parody track, right? 
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: Is it fair to have perceptions of Nina Nesbitt coloured by the overt desperation of releasing a launchpad single called “Selfies” four years ago? Well, no. It wasn’t even a bad song. But Doolittle, Doolate, and when “the most pre-ordered debut album in Island history” falls flat, the path forward is anyone’s guess. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, and in effect has been both. Nesbitt has clearly spent the following years exploring her sound and so forth, and yet here she is with what still feels like a polished pastiche, only with worse Instagram references. It does stand on its own terms, but perhaps more than anything released this year by anyone aside from Liam Payne, it feels like a three-and-a-half minute affectation.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: The exact midpoint of “No Scrubs” and “New Rules.” It’s an accomplishment, of sorts, to be this precisely on trend to the millisecond. Just a boring one.
[5]

Will Adams: If last year saw a mini-trend of novelty ’80s resprays of pop songs, this year has seen the nostalgia clock dialed forward to the late ’90s; the question is now, “What if She’kspere produced ‘New Rules’?” In theory, it’s a worthy experiment — the synthetic guitar strums hit a very specific memory in me; that is, backseat of mom’s station wagon on the way to school, B96 humming in the foreground. On the other hand, I still don’t really get “New Rules.”
[5]

Julian Axelrod: It’s jarring hearing such a modern kiss-off filtered through this early aughts aesthetic, like Destiny’s Child interpolating Chris Brown’s “Loyal.” But while the hook is reliably sticky and Nesbitt turns in a solid vocal, the acoustic guitar production isn’t quite strong enough to surpass its throwback gimmick.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The finger snaps and acoustic flourishes evoke a J. Lo single from 2001, but similarities end there. Nina Nesbitt doesn’t necessarily embrace “I’ve Never Been to Me” — the title is a warning, a palm out to selfish dudes.
[6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: At times this sounds like an inert version of the numerous late ’90s/early 2000s songs it’s trying to emulate. Part of that is because “Loyal to Me” isn’t directed to the guy in question but to one’s own friends. As such, being unable to hear a direct kiss-off between an “I” and “you” leaves much to be desired for a song that spends much of its runtime outlining a bunch of red flags. While songs about camaraderie are much appreciated, the initial verse claims all women are “vulnerable,” proposing that any “tough[ness]” is mere posturing. It’s odd, but I guess it uses this mentality to justify how women need to stick together because “[they] talk.” The bridge then becomes a small anthem that derides lying exes and consequently points to the loyalty of friends. A nice sentiment, but its simplicity is emblematic of how lazy and unexciting this song is in general.
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