The Singles Jukebox

This is what she’s gotta tell us?

[Video][Website]
[5.50]

Anthony Easton: Her voice just sounds tired and worn out, incapable of forward movement. In this sense the repeating of the chorus, the begging, and the refusal of pop-diva excess until the very end, are peculiarly effective.
[8]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: “Somebody Like Me” over-eggs the pudding by the time it reaches its climax — programmed drums crashing like waves! caterwauling! all the world’s self-loathing! — but there’s just enough riding on it for the noise to be necessary. The mix of the confrontational and the honest push Mumba to attempt her best powerhouse vocals, and she pushes and pushes until she’s bowled you over. It’s a performance and a half — the song sounds like it’s consuming Mumba whole. She wants this song to crawl in your skin. And like it or not, this song may just consume you by sheer force.
[7]

Alfred Soto: An awful lot of psychobabble that Mumba can’t make scan, and the music doesn’t present a challenge.
[4]

Scott Mildenhall: Relentless misery! The self-flagellatory hook is repeated far too many, far too many, far too many times, but in the song’s half-bakedness lies its power. The line becomes nagging, and with the music building, things turning from implosion to explosion with no sign of a resolution, almost worrying. (Don’t worry though, it’s only a song.)
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Samantha Mumba’s debut is required listening for everyone fainting over the Ariana Grande album. This song is required listening as its counterpart cautionary tale. (“Why you wanna go and make love with somebody like me” — whither the confidence?)
[3]

Brad Shoup: The question is all gulps and tears, and it just keeps getting asked. I should’ve known that the repetition would work, given enough exposure. In the bridge she pivots from “tell me why you wanna” to “tell me how you gonna”; it lets in a little of that red light. Otherwise it’s a emotional tourist destination: a thing to gawk at and not really comprehend.
[6]

Will Adams: Mumba is reserved but pleasant, and the drums crescendo at the right moments. But with a chorus that inert, “Somebody Like Me” falls prey to sounding like Leona Lewis’ leftovers.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: Hard to believe that Mumba was once the sprightliest and of the post-Britney popettes, because now she sounds like she’s modelled herself on the adult-radio-friendly Jamelia, with a bit of Leona Lewis thrown in. A good ballad speaks to something, be it universal or specific, but this merely belabours its point — its mostly-repeated chorus swells but falls flat — without any additional believability.
[5]