I kissed a girl and I liked it better than Kid Cudi, Santigold and Girls…

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[7.00]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Eli’s provocation begins early in life, like a scene out of Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac: “been thinking of my sixth grade teacher… it always gets me aroused.” And POW, Eli has your attention, dryly flicking through textbook desires with little interest as to how shocked you may be. Between the artist’s eye-rolling delivery and abrasive, yet simple gunshot percussion, “Girls” is a lot of fun. On her Twitter, Eli gleefully says that more blush-forming anthems are on their way: “Hahaha some of you thought “Girls” was explicit you just wait…” She also tweeted “PARTY IN MY PANTS” — let’s hope that’s not a direct tease.
[7]

Brad Shoup: I dunno about y’all, but I am un. raveling.
[10]

Iain Mew: The impatient first verse starts off with implications of insomnia before the sharp turn to “hoping you would come” and then the thoughts of a sixth grade teacher “getting me aroused”, the second played expertly for humour as much as shock. The twist isn’t just narrative, with the music spiraling out into dream territory alongside Eli’s frank words. She’s always in control, but the sense of scale that the booming drums provide is both familiar (these girls call like “Dominos”) and just the thing for some life-changing fantasies.
[8]

Megan Harrington: How much cooler is Beatrice Eli than Vince Neil? I am going to be very disappointed if this is later revealed as a publicity ploy. 
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: A few synths, a few strobes, and bluntly in the gap, its premise. Look, so: this is a musical environment in which t.A.T.u. thrived, and Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” thrived, both of which became their respective artists’ breakout hits because of lezsploitation, if not so much actual lesbians, and we all know this, and “Girls” is a totally different song if it’s cynical than if it’s sincere; but there’s no real evidence to think it’s not sincere, and everyone who’s heard this is looking for that and she knows it, and there isn’t enough song here for a thinkpiece besides.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Beatrice Eli claims to have little interest in the Macklemoreian aspect of the bizarre “congratulations, gay!”/”LOL GAY”/”ooh lesbian” paradox, but whether she likes it or not, she is placing herself firmly in the third bracket of that wretched Katy Perritory. It’d be disingenuous to claim otherwise — part of “Girls” centres around telling a boyfriend that, shock! she likes girls. That “shock” casts a shadow over the whole song; a brilliant one on pure sonics, but tainted by what feels like a thorough fetishisation of her feelings. Maybe she feels some kind of othering is inevitable in a heterosexist society, but is it? Does it have to be, in her song? In pop?
[7]

John Seroff: The social lib in me would like to give “Girls” credit for button and border pushing, but hoooo boy is this ever bad: bloodless, inelegant, flimsy electromope production with a clunky rhyme scheme, disaffected delivery and 30H!3-caliber lyricism. This is possibly the first song I’ve heard focused on eating pussy that makes the act sound boring.
[2]

Alfred Soto: Let me start with what it gets wrong: the martial beats enforce an unbecoming didacticism, as if loving the same sex qualified you to march in a parade line; the singsong melody doesn’t help the line about Eli seeing pictures of herself between her legs (she’s shoving the rest of us in with her). But the electronics, thick and uncluttered, undergird Eli’s frankness.
[6]

Jer Fairall: She deadpans a little too cooly for me, placing ironic quotation marks around her text that ought not to be there, but “Girls” is saved by Eli’s forthrightness: her masturbatory fantasies are as defiant (to us) and revelatory (to her) as they are frustrated.
[7]

Anthony Easton: No matter how predatory this is — and it is, terribly so — I find it profoundly erotic and isolating. The rawness of women’s sexual power is still viewed as scary in our culture, and one cannot escape from the culture one lives in. All of that said, it might be threatening from the prelude and the coda. The percussive kick and spit, introducing a spoken voice, magpie inherited from PJ circa Rid of Me, or Frankie Goes to Hollywood circa “Relax,” or Cohen around “Jazz Police,” or Courtney around Celebrity Skin — wise, knowing, and precise.
[9]

Edward Okulicz: A perfectly OK song about (admittedly LOOK AT ME-ish) lesbian desire, slightly ruined by the awkward “coming out” in the second verse, which is a bit statement-y for my taste. Some stories are best left with the silences left in.
[6]

Mallory O’Donnell: Hovering around tremulous questions of gender, identity or sexuality here is to be resolutely avoided. All songs devoted to the thrust of young love should be so primal, innocent, shameless and shameful. Look, we’ve all seen those pictures in our heads. We just need a helping hand to show us how we can instagram them without feeling bad about it.
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