The Singles Jukebox

Raggedy beard man…

[Video][Website]
[3.29]

Claire Biddles: Why must the sound of ~authenticity~ always be the sound of a bearded white dude growling? Actually don’t answer that.
[1]

Alfred Soto: It has the air of respectability that taints Leon Bridges and tainted the last years of Gil Scott-Heron: a theme song in search of a Netflix original series.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: A few months back I came across an 8tracks playlist of “Pacific Northwestern Gothic” songs — it’s an OK mix, if you’re fine with glum indie rock that tends towards the interchangeable. I had been directed there thanks to a Tumblr writer who complimented it by contrast: “I guess everyone got tired of all those Southern Gothic mixes that all had ‘Bottom of the River,’ ‘God’s Gonna Cut You Down,’ ‘Wake Oh Sleeper,’ and miscellaneous The Civil Wars songs arranged in slightly different orders.” Rag ‘n’ Bone Man’s song “Human” sounds like it wants to belong on one of those Southern Gothic mixes, only it’s recorded by an Englishman who hasn’t heard that in 2016 that shit sips Lemonade. Rag ‘n’ Bone Man tolerably evokes, in what could generously be called a bluesy stomp, a familiar aesthetic, but if you don’t want to call on Johnny Cash for your quasi-spiritual roots exercise, why not try the True Blood opening titles? Points, I guess for the low end, which lends the arrangement a depth its singer does not.
[4]

William John: I hear the repeated refrain “I’m only human,” and an internal compass instantly swings toward Beyoncé: specifically, 2016’s “Love Drought,” and the admission that “ten times out of nine,” Beyoncé is “only human,” and then to 2013’s extraordinary “Jealous,” and the stagger backward: “I’m just jealous/I’m just human/Don’t judge me.” Both Beyoncé songs are balancing acts of self-affirmation with defeat: they feature frank, vulnerable admissions; allude to the fracturing of romantic relationships; sit moodily in an ambiguous grey. Rag ‘n’ Bone Man fails to espouse the same subtlety. “Human” is less an embrace of human frailty and more condescending NIMBYism; there are lines about mirrors, but it’s a song that fails engage in any process of self-reflection. The song deals only in vacant platitudes, and a staid, Sandé-with-“Born To Die“-yelps production sequence doesn’t lift them; another mondegreen here is “I’m just a man, I do what I can,” which was so much more interesting and subversive when sung by a woman and backed up by a bonkers arrangement of synths.
[3]

Tim de Reuse: The lyrics lean heavily on that one line — “I’m only human, after all” — repeating it in the verses, the chorus, over and over like our weary-voiced narrator is trying to wring every ounce of deep-seated painful meaning out it. The issue is that the titular sentiment doesn’t really have any meat on its bones; it’s so focused and straightforward that the result is utterly unsurprising, and the constant reiterations of the theme get tedious. Maybe it doesn’t help that the track is trying to deliver a humbling message with such pomp and flourish.
[3]

Hannah Jocelyn: I had to listen a few times to ensure this wasn’t “Way Down We Go” — at the very least, I don’t recall Kaleo unintentionally referencing Sia, Daft Punk, and Grimes, or having random “yeah” samples popping up in the verses. Yet, the more I hear it, the more I see the differences, because at least this knows how to build tension and has some sense of drama (even if the lyrics are somehow more meaningless). “Human” more resembles Jamie N Commons’s great song “Rumble and Sway,” only slowed down and drearier. So on the scale between Kaleo and Commons, this rates about a:
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Some points because I keep thinking the bassline is going to turn into Massive Attack’s “Safe From Harm,” I guess. Not entirely convinced of the song’s humanity; it’s all lungs and no heart.
[3]