That’s not Jake Johnson…?
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[4.88]
Patrick St. Michel: “I’m tired of being clever/everyone’s clever these days.” This song begs to differ.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Deschanel’s thick-as-syrup voice needs no echo or girl group backdrop to remind us that she (and him) can offer their mysterious audience little beyond novelty. Joseph Gordon-Levitt wouldn’t listen either.
[3]
Anthony Easton: M. Ward is a really talented songwriter; Zooey Deschanel has a more limited set of skills, but one is that she is a genius at a very specific kind of physical comedy. Both have a certain sense of where their demographic lies. Sometimes the talents work together, for something nakedly commercial enough to be interesting. This is not one of those times.
[4]
Rebecca A. Gowns: Zooey’s doing a weird thing with her voice on this song…? Sort of more of a belt? Kinda like she had some classical training between 2008 and now. It’s not entirely pleasant, because it’s caught between a jazz-Broadway belt and the silly airy voice that she relied on for a while… it sounds like your aunt doing a great job at karaoke?? Anyway, whatever this song is it’s not great, but it’s certainly endearing.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “I’m tired of being clever/everybody’s clever these days” sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the lyrics to “Never Wanted Your Love”, as though it’s a reassuring statement from Zooey Deschanel to the listener — Hey, we just want to give you pleasant ditties, straight up. Don’t worry yourself about how our new stuff’ll sound or if it’s more “mature” or “complex” blah blah blah. Just bob your head and imagine you’re on a horse-drawn carriage when the strings come in, there’s a good boy/girl. And although I rolled my eyes, I bobbed my head along in time. Being clever isn’t everything, I understand.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: Rather dark lyric for such a strenuously winsome song, no? It’s the classic contrast trick, and it can work great — this is essentially “Lovefool,” orchestrated — but here, it’s more like finding She & Him’s limitations.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Whatever Ben Gibbard’s next full-length project, the critical dissection may be positively Swiftian. What if Deschanel’s beating him to the punch? Sunshine pop hides medicine the best. I love the overexposed strings and the meaty, laconic guitar lines. I’m not nuts, as ever, about Zooey’s flopsweat twang, since it obscures her winning — and I don’t mean this pejoratively — amateur vocal navigation. But the track works itself into quite a lather, and New Girl is the best show on TV, so.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: Perfectly pleasant retro-pop orchestration decorating a surprisingly affectless central performance. I’ve come to appreciate Zooey Deschanel’s abilities as both a comic actress and an emotion-generating performer (which is different, I think, from being a great dramatic actress), but her delivery here sounds more like a songwriter’s demo than the classic pop the instrumentation is aiming for; even the subtle country twang reads more as an odd choice than a fully-conceived part of the performance.
[5]