The Singles Jukebox

Maybe we’ll be happier with a different One Direction member…

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Katherine St Asaph: It begins: the X Factor after X Factor, i.e. the competition for which member of One Direction makes the best EDM vocalist. Rock is dead, we’re told, and that whole Mind of Mine tangent is receding into its one week of 2016; what else are these celebrities to do? Louis has a decent shot at second-best depending on the rest of the bunch, but “Just Hold On” is hardly a bravura turn and Steve Aoki doesn’t give him a banger to compensate.
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Jonathan Bradley: Louis Tomlinson was the weakest singer and canniest member of One Direction, so it maybe should not be entirely surprising that he proves himself to be a deft hook singer on this collaboration with Steve Aoki. He should look for a better creative partner: Aoki only provides technical gloss to the stadium EDM sound towards which One Direction was ill-advisingly heading in its final Zayn-less days. Unlike the enervated sex jams Zayn has been pushing, Tomlinson has maintained his old band’s interest in rousing inclusion. Without fanbase or bandmates beside him, however, the effect is diminished.
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Olivia Rafferty: I don’t know if Louis Tomlinson ever really had the vocal chops or the personality to hold his own as a solo artist. In terms of his voice, it has such a light timbre that it never manages to offer any depth or emotion to what he’s singing. As for the rest, I’d really like to see what he offers the world apart from being able to jump up and down in a white t-shirt and have fake babies. And this track doesn’t do that for me. In terms of a post-1D debut, both Zayn and Niall did a bit of “this is me” in their new songs: Zayn solidifying a Bad Boy image while grabbing Gigi Hadid’s hips in “Pillowtalk,” and Niall quietly reinforcing his image as the Golden-Hearted Irish Boy with an acoustic number. What does Louis’s debut communicate about his image, now that he’s free from those boyband shackles to truly be his self? “Just Hold On” is filled with run-of-the-mill idioms and imageries, opening and closing chapters, rising and falling suns, all saturated with a “woah oh” refrain that hits you over the head like a blunt hammer. All suspicions confirmed: Tomlinson doesn’t have what it takes to stand alone.
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Scott Mildenhall: This is about as good as could be hoped from a Louis Tomlinson solo single. For one thing, the connotations of the phrase “Louis Tomlinson solo single” were nebulous at best, but he’s found a happy medium between a banger and balladry that he’s able to pull off. With or without the poignance of biography, the lyrics are at the more touching end of generic, and it’s also the closest “Atemlos” will come to being a hit outside Central Europe, which is a boon in itself.
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Alfred Soto: Tomlinson’s whinny suits electronic tracks better than expected, but in 2017 pop electronic tracks proceed as expected, or even below expectations.
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Andy Hutchins: The cover art for “Just Hold On” is Steve Aoki and Louis Tomlinson in silhouette, a perfect illustration of this pale imitation of so many better EDM-pop songs.
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Ramzi Awn: For all its good intents, “Just Hold On” employs the infamous Kesha “oh” stutter to far lesser effect than Zayn and Taylor Swift on this Bieberesque and boring single. 
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Megan Harrington: Not quite a knockoff, but the song version of one of those drinking and painting classes where everyone has two glasses of wine and creates a semblance of Starry Night. “Just Hold On” isn’t “Glad You Came,” it’s your very own “Glad You Came.” 
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Mo Kim: fun.’s gang vocals in one hand and The Wanted’s beats (and Auto-Tune) in the other, Louis Tomlinson holds onto these Spotify Top 50 tropes with shameless professionalism and little else. Even my usual generosity towards Good Feelings Songs For Hard Times shrivels at the feet of such penetrating insights as “the sun goes down and it comes back up.”
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Jessica Doyle: Some nights I stay up, cashing in my bad luck. Some nights I put the book down after the chapter ends and never pick it up again — only I don’t, because either the book’s not worth finishing and I abandon it regardless of the chapter, or I want to know what happens next. Some nights I resent songs where the lyricists don’t seem to have thought through their own banalities. Some nights I wonder if the invocation of “Glad You Came” is deliberate — if so, it was a miscalculation: I’ll take the leering thuds of “take you by the hand/hand you another drink” over this any damn day. Night. Whatever.
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Micha Cavaseno: Look, I’m not even capable of savaging a kid making a song inspired by his mother’s passing. Its tasteful in how it tries to present a sense of optimism that’s universal in the wake of loneliness and separation, that isn’t nearly as self-involved as it reflects on an inability to have someone “there” for you. If anything, I just wish Aoki could’ve perhaps gone for something more moderate, not trying to achieve this weird sense of mid-level banger to uplift, but anything else would betray the goals of being so anthemic and positive. Tomlinson’s voice is what it is, but there’s some charm in someone trying so hard just to convey with his words rather than vocal gestures.
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Hannah Jocelyn: Why do so many pieces of music have this same exact melody?? In fact, every melody in this thing seems taken from another song: the pre-chorus sounds like the “everyone else in the room can see it…” section from “What Makes You Beautiful,” the chorus is literally “Glad You Came,” and the drop is, erm, “Cecelia.” Wait, what’s that? It’s about his mom dying of leukemia? Oh gosh. Well, um, it’s satisfying to hear in a way that the other two songs covered today decidedly aren’t. And not dissimilar to his (former?) bandmate’s “This Town,” Louis sounds genuine, which makes sense given the subject matter. If writing, recording, then performing this on X Factor was cathartic in some shape or form, then it’s difficult to judge this too harshly. Needless to say, that doesn’t make it a good song, but if it does its job, it can’t be a bad one. 
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Thomas Inskeep: I couldn’t have picked Tomlinson out of the 1D lineup if you’d paid me, but based on “Just Hold On,” he sounds like Justin Bieber’s less interesting little brother. (Yeah, I initially didn’t think that was plausible, either, but there you go.) Fittingly, Aoki’s snooze of a track comes off as a xerox of a xerox of a xerox of a Major Lazer/DJ Snake/Diplo/[insert pop-leaning EDM DJ here] track. Which doesn’t surprise me in the least, because I’ve proudly been an Aoki hater since 2007. Sometimes, you really do get what you pay for. 
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