The Singles Jukebox

Giraud will note that all our writers continue to have survived our “God Made Girls” entry…

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[6.56]

Josh Langhoff: This thing is all mixed up. The sound and structure mash together “Kiss Me” with “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” along with a punched-in banjo tackling the role of added-note synth ostinatos, along with an actual synth — the final seconds of droney fade sound like Tangerine Dream. (But no, the Punch Brothers are genre-bending innovators!) The heart of the boy in question is a transparent freight train, making him both Casey Jones and Wonder Woman. This boy, RaeLynn’s ex, has brought RaeLynn to a bar to make up or something, and RaeLynn has adopted a stance of boyish impassivity, and she is watching boy squirm, and this apology sure is taking him a while because now it’s last call and if they don’t get back together right now they never will! Beneath her Cool Girl facade RaeLynn is a lovesick fool. We know this not because she tells us, although she does, but because her song lays bare her stream of consciousness in the last crucial moment before boy either fishes or cuts bait. Also because this scenario could be the penultimate scene in a romantic comedy, following 20 minutes of mounting frustration with characters who insist on acting the way they think people are supposed to act. Unlike that synth chord, RaeLynn’s story doesn’t resolve.
[6]

Cédric Le Merrer: Innocence writ large in sturdy, earnest songcraft, avoiding any temptation to subvert or be clever via easy wordplay. Which also means it’s a bit boring.
[5]

Alfred Soto: She’s so young and her voice so uninterestingly nice that the way in which her songs want to reject gender constrictions by accepting those constrictions as a starting point has no frisson, no tension — she’s a singer and sometime songwriter who believes in gimmicks first. 
[4]

Mo Kim: RaeLynn is a master of both the coy backhanded compliment and the guts-spilling-over confessional: she measures her words on the verses like she’s poking at conventions she’s been told by her parents not to break, but on the chorus she is all giddy head-over-heels want, transforming female vulnerability into agency. She’s well-matched by the instrumental, gentle syncopated snaps and strums that bloom along with her.
[8]

Iain Mew: The melody occasionally resembles Taylor Swift’s “Holy Ground”, but as a singer RaeLynn reminds me more of Ellie Goulding. The way she rips into singing “what you don’t know”, squashing and stretching odd bits of it, makes for a similar rush to something like “Starry Eyed”, and the song works better the more it’s centred on that and the less on overly pushy country-pop sheen.
[6]

Anthony Easton: This is weirdly manipulative, but it does suggest a move forward, where she is claiming a power above her previous hit. Excellent use of the voice, too. 
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: “For a Boy,” particularly the shimmering, heroic titular melody, suits the crackling and sweet qualities of RaeLynn’s voice well; the switch in the chorus to “what a girl like me would do for a boy” is such a deft trick it makes up for the verse songwriting being amateurland. But something’s off; there’s plenty of pluck: not enough swoon. After “God Made Girls” I hate to make RaeLynn a gender case study again, but I wonder if the same forces that keep women off country radio in general keep them shunt them toward Southern rock that isn’t always the best stylistic fit. Imagine “For a Boy” produced more like “All That.”
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: If Nashville‘s Scarlett O’Connor actively wanted to be a star, she’d be RaeLynn, armed with an awesomely twangy voice, smart commercial instincts, and a collection of good songs. This is a sunny, sweet love song that I absolutely buy; it doesn’t take RaeLynn’s vocal to get it over, but it certainly helps. 
[7]

Edward Okulicz: A [10] if this were to be sung in Nashville by Scarlett when she inevitably and stupidly gets back together with Gunnar. As it is, RaeLynn’s vowels when she runs a lot of words together make her sound a little uncomfortable, and make me feel it too. I actually thought at one point she was saying “for a ghoul.” She’s not quite making me believe it on the verses, but that’s one big chorus.
[8]