The Singles Jukebox

And another repeat artist from Daniel! Man, we keep up with music, don’t we?

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[5.43]

Alfred Soto: I liked “Kisses for Breakfast,” his collaboration with Michelle Steele, so the blah rhymes and high notes on this dancehall performer’s single disappointed me.
[4]

Mark Sinker: Desire, sex, romance, marriage, parenthood, communal commentary (the line abt doubters on Twitter) and even a hint of a grownup sense of forethought and planning (“book out the whole of the space in my heart”), delivered in a single sentence, more or less. The delivery compresses the unfolding story, deep past and distant future, into a unified RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW; the restless, lithe, keening sound, with curlicues and tendrils of synth and chittering shudder of robodrums amplifies this, and keeps anything from settling or resolving. Do I believe his promises, his commitment to everything solid and officially respectable? No. Has he convinced her? No idea. Has he convinced himself, that she’s in, that he’ll do right by her and the kids to come? Absolutely.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: Popcaan tackles the challenge of telling a girl that he’s so into her that she’s all he can see with the vigour of a street magician — here’s a bit that sounds like a harp, oh wait, no, it’s gone. If pitching woo is spouting half-truths, “Waiting So Long” is a bunch of entertaining lies and exaggerations, and agreeably fizzy as well. His pronunciation of “fingers” is worth at least three listens.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Popcaan attempts something really difficult here: being real about the ambient noise surrounding a superstar while being the fantasy of the Perfect Famous Guy Who’s Into You. The tension’s distilled into the strings, which can seem portentous from one angle and archly romantic from another. Sex and love and harps and Twitter rumors: it’s a heady mix, and he can’t quite part the waters.
[5]

Anthony Easton: The vocals here have so little modulation and change inflection so rarely, and the song just kind of fails to make any serious aesthetic choices. I wonder why I am bothering. 
[2]

Micha Cavaseno: It’s not my favorite track off Popcaan’s remarkable demonstration of his realized potential this year (that’d probably be either “Where We Come From” or “Addicted”), but it remains a pretty decent track from one of the few younger dancehall artists granted an international profile.
[5]

Crystal Leww: 2014 has been a batshit year, not because nothing good was released but because finding the good stuff required a lot of critics to forego attachments to full albums or look in places they may have never expected. Popcaan released Where We Come From in June, and though there are plenty of critics who love dancehall, it never quite generated the amount of noise that a decent indie rock album might. Not every moment on the album feels together, and even “Waiting So Long” plods at times, but there are moments that thrill. Here, Popcaan sounds so genuinely thrilled to zoom off into outer space on certain words in the chorus that you just wanna join along for the ride.
[7]