Tara Thompson – Someone to Take Your Place
“Mm-mmm” more like “uh-uhh”…
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[5.00]
Brad Shoup: When keeping it real goes wrong.
[4]
Alfred Soto: This average student of the Miranda Lambert hell-on-heels includes details in her songs because that’s what Good Songs have: Payless Shoes, a perfume that ain’t Chanel No. 5, man with the dragon tattoo. “Get your hand off my mm-mm” adds “coyness.” The guitar adds “raunch.”
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: Snappier and more revved-up than I was expecting, but she’s got a way to go to be the Miranda Lambert she wants to see in the world.
[6]
Cassy Gress: Tara stuffed this song full of lines about exactly where she is and what she looks like and who she ain’t going home with tonight, and it makes a great mental picture. The picture vanishes, though, every time she gets to “get your hand off my mmm-mmm”; I think it’s supposed to be cute but we’re all adults here, she can say “ass.” A cute thing that does work is the “oooooooooooo yup” toward the end.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: She’s got the lyrical cleverness of a Shane McAnally co-write with the likes of Brandy Clark and/or Kacey Musgraves, but her production and attitude harken to Gretchen Wilson or Toby Keith. Witty, sassy, and super sing-a-long-able.
[8]
Will Adams: With a pile of cultural references and nudge-nudge single-entendre lyrics in hand, Thompson smothers “Someone to Take Your Place” in the type of faux-sass that reminds me of Chelsea Bain’s “Rockin’ That Trailer.” I don’t doubt Thompson could pull off ‘tude in theory, but when she says “get your hand off my mm-mmm” she sounds like a Campbell’s commercial and when she says “sorry” she sounds like Gilly.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: I’m really fully done by the goofiness of “She said get out there and work it girl, so I’m workin’ it,” but there are so many points where Thompson’s clearly throwing out a sea of puns and trying horrifically to give it accompaniment with melody and arrhythmic presence. Never mind Jhene Aiko, THIS is the girl who needs to do a project with Big Sean.
[2]
This feels… incoherent. It varies between great (the sorry-not-sorry moment) to “the fuck am I listening to” (the dragon tattoo bit). I also love the bridge — really, no one mentioned the sex on the washing machine line? — but then I can’t get over the grammar of “do you like the new me I am” and the terrible, terrible line about two Coronas. So it averages out to like a [5], I think. She’s got promise, but a quick Google also came up with many interviews in which she didn’t want to engage in “man bashing”, which I feel like is going to cramp her quest to be the New Miranda Lambert.
… which I just noticed is exactly the average this song got, so yep, [5].