The Singles Jukebox

“Inoffensive”… “half-hearted”… “indigestible”…

[Video]
[4.38]

Tim de Reuse: I’m pleasantly surprised that the Jonas Brothers managed to put together a better-than-competent groove for once. Unsurprising: the particular lens through which they view romance is as unappealing as ever. Such focus on the particular phrasing of “Who’s in your head” makes it sound like a song about parasitism.
[4]

Ian Mathers: A sturdy enough chassis, but even as a Bernard Sumner aficionado them leading off with “You moved like magic/You moved like time/You had your heart disguised/When you cry diamonds/Yeah, they shine” is a bit… indigestible. It never really recovers; maybe if they’d kept it generic throughout we could have gotten through this.
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: I want to dig this but it still feels too stiff, not trying to bend or creak. Joe, for once, is a far more captivating presence, while Nick wails and shrieks, and the dusty, twirling guitar played by Kevin is a lot of fun. 
[5]

Kayla Beardslee: This is so inoffensive that I’m actually offended.
[2]

Claire Biddles: Both the Jonas Brothers and Max Martin can do better than this Maroon 5 knock-off — that half-hearted “awoo” at the end of the chorus says it all. An extra point for Joe’s falsetto on the pre-chorus.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: Half of this song is actually my platonic idea of a good single, if you were restricted to the sort of single that could be released by Maroon 5. But there’s two problems. The first is that the uncomfortable pre-chorus, with a falsetto that sounds like a vice is being applied to testicles, is out of place, as it doesn’t launch into any drama or anguish or anything — just a kind of okay chorus. The second is that okay chorus peters out into nothing, making it overall a below-average chorus.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I should give them credit for sounding more like Maroon 5 in 2021 than Maroon 5 even did in 2012, but the insistent callowness of the vocals tries to overcompensate for their nullity, and in 2021 sharing third-rate paranoid fantasies about who’s doing what in your girlfriend’s bed is a yawner. A yawner in 2012 too.
[5]

Andrew Karpan: A small masterpiece in the trio’s style of tightly-wound pedestrian pop; these are songs for people who fall in love and then fall in love again and then proceed to wait patiently until they fall in love for, perhaps, a third time.
[6]