The Singles Jukebox

Album three sees Shawn make his first appearance on the right side of the [5.00] line…

[Video]
[5.29]

Alfred Soto: I’m not sure what it says about me that I kind of like the grain of Shawn Mendes’s vocal, squeaky and unconvincing as it is. After all, didn’t Harry Styles essay this pretty-boy-at-Meadowlands approach to pop music a year ago? Maybe because Mendes does sound like a squeaky, unconvincing young adult sharing squeaky, unconvincing emotions; this is  a guy who learned feeling from John Mayer videos, for god’s sake. But I can imagine the dull teen in Love, Simon jamming to this in his car. Teenage angst pays off well.
[7]

Crystal Leww: My favorite thing about Teddy Geiger’s work with Shawn Mendes is the way that they play with the soft and the loud. This starts out so quiet before bursting, which just gives the track such a nice dimensionality. Mendes says that the song is about his own struggles with anxiety, and this certainly reflects an ebb and flow, a tension build and release. It’s a solid single for the new album.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: It’s been a few years now, and Shawn Mendes’s insistent refusal to learn to not sing through his nose feels like a personal affront; a human manifested to punish me for rude words aimed at my baby sister in 2002 or for stealing Kit-Kats from neighbors during Halloween, which has manifested in such a massive karmic debt that I’m supposed to suffer. Everyone else is apparently content with willingly suffering the Vine-generation Chris Daughtry. I can tolerate that when these were straight-ahead stripped down singer-songwriter blasts of sheep-bleats as pep but hearing this plasticine rock turd and being told it’s gold is an offense my already demonstrated massive ego cannot suffer.
[2]

Juana Giaimo: Moving away from the romantic acoustic songs, Shawn Mendes tries this time to go deeper into himself to express his feelings towards anxiety. The upbeat and fast melodies have no place here, and instead there is a slow melody with a steady beat as if the vocals were carrying a heavy burden. His coarse vocals are still present but still a little too forced, as if he was trying to prove this is a serious song. 
[6]

Stephen Eisermann: Shawn does a great Kings of Leon impression. He’s always had a terrific voice, if a bit whiny, but here he finds a way to control the cry in his voice better than he has previously in ballads. In his efforts to better control the cry in his voice, he’s also managed to use his higher pitch to better express the pain behind the lyrics. Even if the lyrics don’t do the best job of explaining what causes the pain, the emotion behind the delivery is real and it’s there. And, goddamnit, Shawn’s fighting.
[7]

Will Adams: I’ve softened on Shawn Mendes, not least of which because he’s begun to add some gusto to his sound. But most of all, he’s moved away from nice-guy sludge to addressing anxiety and self-doubt. Initially, “In My Blood” sets its sights on a driving, Sheeran-fied sound, but then, a switch: the chorus goes half-time, diving into an exact replica of Rihanna’s “Fire Bomb,” and the emotion finally pierces through. It’s as if Shawn Mendes is pushing through radio mandates to lay his soul bare, and for the first time I believe him.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: I wasn’t aware Ryan Tedder was a blood type.
[2]