The Singles Jukebox

I mean, hey, they’re cheaper when you buy them in bulk…

[Video]
[6.67]

Will Adams: I wish I enjoyed this more, as this is pretty much Melodrama if you substituted twenty heaps of synths for Jack Antonoff. As it is, “1000 Eyes” is able to grab your attention but doesn’t offer any dynamics once you’re in its fray.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: If you uploaded this to YouTube mistagged as a Melodrama offcut, you could get a nice pile of views. It’s because of October’s voice against the dark synthpop, obviously, but also the full-throated obsession of lines like “I want to make your brain my home.” And for once the chorus intensifies the darkness, rather than backing off, the mistake too many songs make.
[7]

Iain Mew: The goth and pop impulses don’t quite meld and each end up sounding a little bare and awkward as a result. The slippery synth line could compensate for greater flaws than that.
[6]

Ryo Miyauchi: The breathy, clipped syllables in the verses reference Lorde’s old playbook, and so do the thunderous percussion booming behind the ghoulish synths. The labored care to her cadence cuts into the narrative at play, but the foundation of her goth-pop aesthetic is solid enough.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The cascades of accumulating noise call Jesus & Mary Chain and Fever Ray to mind, but October, despite the colorless name, keeps her pop instincts on the hook; the sound effects work for the track. Is this desire? Oh, yes.
[7]

William John: My partner is from New Zealand, and so I feel like I can say with some authority that Kiwis don’t, in fact, all enunciate like they’re recently recovered from jaw surgery and are reacquainting their mouths with movement. Nonetheless, my first thought upon clicking play was “oh, Fisher-Price Lorde”; her vocal tics now seem as pervasive in modern pop as those of fellow antipodean Sia. It’s the chorus that renders any such comparisons facile. Here, the pace quickens, synths begin spiralling, the protagonist’s eyes gain a murderous, thrilling glint, and the sudden bloom of melodramatics is mirrored by the melody’s incessant, giddy ascendance.
[8]