The Singles Jukebox

I’m that star up in the sky, I’m that mountain peak up high…

[Video][Website]
[4.57]

Alfred Soto: Well, one of them might be.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Sia’s reign of terror continues unabated: simplistic Up with People-style lyrics (“don’t give up, I won’t give up,” “I’m free to be the greatest,” et.al.) combined with Greg Kurstin’s saccharine production equals GET ME THE INSULIN NOW! Not even Kendrick at his best could save this. Spoiler alert: this isn’t even close to Kendrick at his best. 
[2]

Katie Gill: In an article, The Atlantic calls this song and music video “striking and beautiful and ineffably sad.” Call me cynical, but all I can see is Sia making her bid at a World Cup anthem. It definitely shot for inspirational but landed more among “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)” than “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” People have written bad songs about tragedies all the time, but I honestly don’t know if anyone’s written a sporty song about a tragedy.
[3]

Claire Biddles: I usually prefer Sia in maximalist mode — the overwrought emotion of “Elastic Heart” or the balls-out Euro-drama of “Move Your Body — songs that are so much that they’re sort of embarrassing. This is the most laid-back version of Sia that I’ve heard, but it suits her. The syncopated introduction and steel drum sounds bring to mind The Knife’s poppier moments, where the mood is warm and inviting rather than icy and sharp. Her voice is less grating and screechy than usual, which makes this more straightforwardly listenable than most of her recent singles, and Kendrick’s chill verse compliments the relative calm.
[7]

Will Adams: One of my problems with most of Sia’s output post-“Chandelier” is that so often she’s weighed down by cumbersome production that, combined with her vocal theatrics, makes for exhausting listening. On “The Greatest,” Greg Kurstin tightens the sounds, allowing space for Sia to roam. It’s just unfortunate that such a snappy, limber track is squandered on yet another “don’t give up” message.
[5]

Hannah Jocelyn: That chorus amazes me; how it has that one explosion at the beginning with the title, and then there might as well be four seconds of utter silence following, if only because that type of tropical-house beat increasingly feels like white noise. Indeed, despite the good intentions of the video — and I suppose the song itself — there’s something so empty about this, in both the lyrics and lifeless production. Even Kendrick just delivers a verse that any other rapper could perform in any other song. (For a comparison, there was a point where he’d even go in with Imagine Dragons.) As chilling as the video’s ending is, I wish the accompaniment had more to say than “don’t give up/I won’t give up.”
[5]

Mo Kim: Sia has a voice capable of contorting itself into any space it sets its sights on. “The Greatest” finds her maneuvering nimbly through a minor-key melody that’s haunting and rousing in equal measure; yet there’s a tension between the chorus’ soaring sentiment of the chorus and the bleak political context (49 queer people whose stamina couldn’t surmount the weight of a bigot’s bullets) that I find myself troubled by. If there’s any resonance to be found, it’s in the way Sia navigates the instrumental, twisting her voice the way we’ve learned to twist our bodies into shapes that our fathers mapped onto them; shapes that we learn how to embody and shift; shapes that come to contain the many little truths we keep alive.
[7]