The Singles Jukebox

Shall we talk about genres?…

[Video][Website]
[5.78]

Rebecca Toennessen: Let’s talk about genres! According to Rhythmbox’s info, this is ‘indie rock’. According to their Wikipedia article, this is synthpop, labelled as electropop. To me it sounds like it could be the Glasvegas single with a slightly more energetic singer. It’s pretty, smooth and comforting, and just may become a favourite if I give it time.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: A perfectly serviceable Moroderesque electro-loop negated by flat singing: Like New Order, but worse.
[4]

Alfred Soto: These guys vaguely evoked New Order. Now they consciously ape an iteration of Simple Minds in which Tom Bailey is the lead singer. Same limp beats too.
[4]

Jer Fairall: Maybe the most perfectly even balance of heart and pulse in a synth pop song since “All My Friends” or, if that’s not traditional enough to qualify, then certainly “Temptation.” Cut Copy’s heart-on-sleeve sincerity might be less measurably cool than James Murphy’s mournful self-examination or New Order’s devious emotional trickery, but this generous six-minute shimmer and throb of oohs and ahhs still washes over you as thoroughly and relentlessly as the waves flooding the city on Zonoscope‘s now-potentially-insensitive album cover.
[9]

Ian Mathers: I think these guys have fundamentally misunderstood their own appeal. A song like “So Haunted” has a kinetic energy to it that “Need You Now” never approaches, even when things get a bit more heated near the end. That, plus the guy’s singing voice is a bit much – this sounds like the first original composition from a super-sincere OMD tribute band, and while I adore OMD, it ain’t a good look for Cut Copy.
[5]

Iain Mew: I’ve not listened to enough other Cut Copy to know if it’s always the case, but the vocals here really sound like they belong to another song entirely. The propulsive beats and smattering of twinkly fairy dust are good, the heartfelt and slightly stuffed-up emoting is… not bad, but neither of them quite allows the other to reach its full potential.
[6]

Anthony Easton: I like when songs that could be sung by Debbie Gibson are extended, isolated, and spaced out. The atmospheric isolation of his “need you now” has less of the erotomania of most pop but is formally innovative about the nature of the enterprise.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: It’s all well made, but the music lacks drive or much tune, it’s a couple of minutes too long, and the singer is simply not good enough.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Dan Whitford doesn’t sound he like he really needs you now, or that there’s even a “you” involved. (Or a “now,” for that matter.) The words in Cut Copy songs rarely matter, however — Alfred Soto has a joke about one of this band’s earlier lyrics being delivered as “Get so horny that I misunderstood tonight” — and the important thing is that something is being felt by someone. The ache here is the kind of gauzy emotional feint that would be derived from a Jim Kerr chorus if it were not allowed to crest, but was forced just to float. The song’s important chatter belongs to the synthesizers; the best thing a human has to say is “doot, doot, doot.”
[7]