The Singles Jukebox

So named for Nile’s attempts to break his collaboration habit…

[Video][Website]
[6.44]

Samson Savill de Jong: It’s exactly one year since Thursday 12th March 2020. On that day, I took a standing-room-only train from Sheffield to Bradford, arriving home to hear my flatmate was in A&E. He eventually arrived home, with a letter saying he had been diagnosed with a) Covid-19 or b) another viral infection. He was confined to his room, while the rest of the flat started calling around to find out what we were actually meant to do. Later, as I was explaining to my mum that we had to isolate ourselves until his test came back (it did, twelve days later, negative), I was informed that Mikel Arteta, manager of my football team Arsenal, had been diagnosed with Covid. Not everyone will have had as dramatic a story as me, but for the people of the UK, it is a year since this went from something on the news to something real and immediate. A year since they’ve been distracted in a club and lost their friends. A year since they’ve gone out and made new friends in the smoking area. A year since they’ve stayed behind for the last song before spilling out into the cold outside. This song isn’t about Covid, and may well have been written before anyone knew what it was, but it has a future nostalgia to it that makes it a strangely appropriate dance song about going out during a time when we can’t go out. You could compare it to “Get Lucky” and nobody would be able to argue with you, especially given the Nile Rodgers connection, but there’s worse songs to be compared to. And boy am I a sucker for that guitar riff. 
[8]

Vikram Joseph: There are probably three contexts in which more people than not feel comfortable talking to complete strangers: festivals, youth hostels, and the smoking area of a nightclub. “One More” is a warm, woozy paean to the latter; Nile Rodgers’ dizzy mirrorball guitar capturing the glow of possibility that comes from those fast, fleeting connections. SG Lewis is an exciting producer, a more than competent lyricist, but a limited, slightly reedy vocalist — last year’s “Impact” was elevated by two great guest slots, but even one would have been helpful here (I, for one, would like to know what Jessie Ware was so busy doing when this was being recorded). Nonetheless, this makes me yearn for a time in the near future when meeting someone you don’t already know will once again be a viable possibility.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Seems to be banking on listeners’ post-2020 tendency to be nostalgic for the saddest shit, like meeting guys in bars who try to neg you home with such romanticisms as “I know you’ve got friends in the bathroom stall” and “if you leave now, I might forget you.” He’s got the tone exact — that flat dirtbag affect of confusing cockiness with contempt — but that just means that if I’d stick around for another song, it’d be in hopes of hearing the Robyn song and not this. Nile Rodgers elevates this, but after a decade of his cash-in guest spots, only so much.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Good on Rodgers for getting a “feat.” credit for contributing some of his patented chicken-scratch guitar, as distinctive as any voice in music. Not so distinctive, unfortunately, is SG Lewis’s song, a fairly generic house-pop ditty that, while by no means bad, doesn’t do much. Still, Rodgers manages to sweeten it a little just by doing what he does.
[6]

Austin Nguyen: A come-on on the same dancefloor as “Don’t Start Now,” with Nile Rodgers and spiral-scale synths as highlights. The bass still struts, albeit hushed alongside the one-note strings, and SG Lewis is even more anonymous than Dua Lipa. But like his tank-top-blazer outfit and pick-up lines, it’s a rearrangement best enjoyed with a cursory glance.
[6]

Hazel Southwell: I have no idea if SG Lewis is supposed to be cool or not, anymore. A few years ago, definitely, but the whole of Times as an album is so on the brink of it all. It feels — this, in particular — like an over-the-top montage made to try and press harder on a bruise that reminds you of dancefloors. I’d definitely turn on a discoball if it was hanging in a prison cell, though, so the extremely “this song has Nile Rodgers on it” gentleness doesn’t count against this as a blurry, Polaroid version of something I might prefer any other time.
[7]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: Someone told me the other day that the people they miss the most during the pandemic are the casual acquaintances that you see, at most, three or four times a year at sporadic social gatherings. You know, the friend of a friend of a friend who you’d never hang out with of your own volition, but you always have a great time with when they’re around? Anyways: here’s a shimmering, delightfully messy disco tomb for when the world opens up again, and we need something playing in the background as we reconnect.  
[7]

Leah Isobel: “One More” achieves a real, unforced velocity, the kind that looks easy to create but isn’t. That’s entirely down to Nile Rodgers’ guitar, which is rich and sparkling and nimble. He brings a gravitas that SG Lewis’ blurry vocal doesn’t live up to, and that power vaccuum makes the song feel a little chintzy.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Working with Nile Rodgers: “amazing”? “A dream of mine“? A mission achieved? “A genuine dream come true”? “Changed the way I think about life”? “[Had me] on the brink of tears”? Drew “a flood of imposter syndrome”? A “luxury”? “Amazing”? An experience that led you to sack him? Clearly, nine times out of ten, the man has an exceptional ability to make people feel special, even when they’re the twelfth person he’s worked with that day. Inevitably, that doesn’t always shine through on record, but sometimes some of the magic can be heard. “One More” is a cohesive thing, and if you can cohere with Nile Rodgers (rather than just put his name to some rubbish cash-in), you are on the safest of ground. Credit to SG Lewis for that, because without the alchemy, this could have just been lead.
[7]