The Singles Jukebox

It seems they’ve at least picked a good band name…

[Video][Website]
[5.62]

Jonathan Bogart: A Tumblr-ready mélange of forced nostalgia, filtered photography, self-regarding winsomeness, and Real “if you’re one of the 8% who still listen to click Like” Music. And if I were in even a slightly less contrary mood, I’d be crushing right along with the rest of the susceptible teenagers.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: You’ll need to tamp down twenty objections even to start listening to this (Did you love summer camp? Summer Camp loved summer camp! They get you!). What awaits is a surprisingly robust voice and clean arrangement, but no song. It’s as if Jeremy amplified Elizabeth’s idle mumblings to herself, aiming for quirky but ending up tedious.
[5]

Doug Robertson: More summer than camp, this is jangly indie of the old school sort, dappled with sunshine and a nostalgic sound, juxtaposed with acerbic lyrics and a Fuck You sentiment that’s at odds with the melody line despite having a similarly uplifting vibe. Inoffensively pretty and as charming as a fairy tale prince who’s been through media training, the only real problem with it is that, enjoyable though it is, there’s not really much of a pressing need for this song to actually exist, what with the vast swathes of other, similar sounding and similarly pleasant, tracks that are already out there, ignored in the corner, waiting politely for their chance to shyly shine.
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Somebody lost Bethany Cosentino in the disco. Please contact the cloakroom if you find her; her mother’s looking for her.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Grant them this, maybe: it’s a wicked move to marry the slick production touches of bygone MOR pop/rock to prototypically twee lyrics (and an adenoidal lead vocal). Imagine Kenny Loggins producing Jilted John – or perhaps the other way around. Structurally sound and fat-free, with shimmering Knopflerisms and a lyrical surprise in the bridge (who doesn’t want whom now?). Works for me.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The lead singer’s nasal authority reminds me of a young Deborah Harry, but I have no idea what she’s trying to say or why she cares. The anodyne brightness of the backing band gives her nothing to worth either — she’s signifying into the void.
[5]

Zach Lyon: Oh, what a wonderful opening 0:15. Everything up to that first 80s guitar twang that sounds like it could be borrowed from the White Ninja song I loved. Following that, though, it fails to ride its own coattails, or at least remain even a sliver as aurally explosive as those first fifteen seconds. Instead, the color gets turned down, or maybe just stuck on neon turquoise, and my ears forget that this is supposed to hold their attention.
[5]

Sally O’Rourke: “Better Off Without You” is Thompson Twins producing Tiger Trap for the soundtrack of a John Hughes mumblecore beach party movie. It’s too self-consciously retro cute, but Summer Camp surpass most of their peers via competent musicianship, solid hooks and Steve Mackey’s production, evoking not a literal ’80s sound but the way the ’80s should have sounded.
[7]