Goulding returns for album number three…

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Crystal Leww: Ellie Goulding’s ride to pop stardom has been uneven. Her debut album Lights was primarily produced by indie-outlet approved pop producer Starsmith, who basically dropped off her team after that album. (These days, Starsmith is working with rising popstar Jess Glynne, who has also been rubber-stamped by the cool crowd.) That first album was underrated for its ability to give the thin-voiced Goulding interesting electronic beats to sing over. “Lights” was boring as a single, as is almost all of follow-up Halycon, save for “Figure 8,” which leaned into its dubstep swoops. The third album has Max Martin and Greg Kurstin all over the credits, which is just as well, because “On My Mind” proves that they recognize Goulding’s weaknesses just as well as her strengths. Her thin voice requires heft from the production, but it also pairs well with those electronic stutters. “On My Mind” is helped by a coyness from Goulding, too, knowing all too well that she’s at fault, too but refusing to cop to it: “saying that I hurt you but I still don’t get it.” Goulding’s voice allows her to be cool because she never really sounds like she’s trying. It works for an electronic babe like her.
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Scott Mildenhall: In his illuminating interview with Popjustice, “On My Mind” co-writer Savan Kotecha uses Ellie Goulding as an example of someone of whom he knows “what they would say or what they wouldn’t say”. There should be no doubt, therefore, that “mad love” is something Ellie Goulding would say. By extension, it is also perhaps unfair to say that hearing Ellie Goulding sing “mad love” is both jarring and laughable, even more so than when Taylor Swift did it. The whole “caustic sass” concept feels ill-fitting in general. What does feel appropriate is how the base of its “edge” seems to have been lent from original anarchists Apollo 440.
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Katherine St Asaph: What is this vocal-production devilry that has turned Ellie Goulding, the second-most-distinctive voice in pop, into a Taylor Swift doppelganger during parts of this and especially the chorus? Somebody alert Nathaniel Rich! (And alert poor discarded Starsmith. Or at least throw his SoundCloud a few views.) “On My Mind” is an improvement over “Love Me Like You Do,” because this time Max Martin gave Goulding a track that wasn’t mushy as rotten persimmon. But I’m not sure these two complement each other. As loath as I am to condone yet another pop singer going alt-R&B, perhaps that might be a better fit?
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Thomas Inskeep: Evil genius Max Martin rewrites the chorus of the Police’s “Message In A Bottle” for his own nefarious purposes while some protégés bat clean-up and Goulding just kinda shows up for the paycheck. 
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Jonathan Bogart: Goulding’s personality-free voice rubs up against a topline constructed to display maximum personality. It only comes together on the middle eight, where she can lean into the long phrases that show off her major asset: her timbre.
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David Sheffieck: I love the sound of the hook, synths nimbly hopscotching through the clouds, but the vocal is like a series of pinpricks deflating its joy — they accumulate as the song drags on, quickly abandoning verses to become a celebration of the chorus’s slow torture. That’s somehow still the right choice: the verses are so void of melody, much less interest, that they’re a completely different kind of slog to get through.
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Brad Shoup: The melodic figure is like a firm, complete statement: crisp and clipped. It’s got a great timber, like the fretting was cut and pasted over the strum. On top is another, similar figure which Goulding gums to death. I get that she’s sick of the Sheeran question — although I remember “Don’t” also getting the biographical pick-apart — but his vocal coach isn’t a yes-person.
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Iain Mew: I really like songs using the trope of internal conflict being represented by different parts of the body fighting each other, which, biology be damned, just feels right (this is probably my favourite). Goulding neatly reverses the normal positions of uncontrollable heart and understanding mind in the equation and makes it work even better, and the song’s uneasy stop-start groove gets across the uncertainty while still allowing for some grandstand musical moments. There’s still a lingering how-did-I-get-here feeling to her songs as pop star, but this is a much better way to use than the last one.
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Alfred Soto: Its symphonic ambitions aside, Goulding’s starchy tone and odd stresses reduce the track to a case study in mismatched enthusiasm.
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Will Adams: The problem with Ellie’s Big Singles (the ones that are clearly meant to be so, like “Burn” or “Love Me Like You Do”) is that they never sound like her. As good as the guitar on “On My Mind” is, there’s no getting around the sub-par chorus, in which Ellie doles out the hook “WHYIGOTCHUONMYMIND” like an amateur throwing darts at the bar. Her light, thin voice appears intermittently to remind you who you’re listening to, until the soggy lyrics make you wish it weren’t her.
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