JLS – Beat Again
They’re from Croydon! (well, one of them, anyway)…
[Video][Website]
[4.10]
Dave Moore: UK boyband goofballs sing about misery with a permanent plastic smile, all well and good. But guys, if you’re going to swipe a chorus wholesale, you might want to be a bit less obvious than Ciara’s “1, 2 Step.”
[5]
Talia Kraines: As X Factor runners up, JLS should be onto a winner. They’ve got the looks, the soulfulness and the screaming girls behind them, but “Beat Again” sounds nothing like you’d expect. Taking its cues from that supposedly “European” sound the likes of Chris Brown and Ne-Yo have been banging on about, you’d think this was a weak track from one of the American superstars. It has flashes of brilliance, and you have no idea how happy we are that Louis Walsh didn’t somehow convince them to cover “Every Loser Wins”, but “Beat Again” is missing a vital catchy hook.
[6]
Doug Robertson: While this isn’t as unremittingly awful as most of the acts who crash off of the X Factor conveyor belt, it’s hard to know why anyone would bother buying this when the same sort of thing can be found elsewhere sounding a lot fresher and a lot less contrived.
[5]
Martin Skidmore: I was mystified at their success on X Factor. Yes, they might have been the best group they’d had on there, but that is not saying much at all: I thought there were at least half a dozen vastly better solo singers in that series. They sound tolerably modern here, with electro sounds on the basic R&B, plus inevitable autotune touches, but they also sound very ordinary indeed. There’s nothing special in any aspect of this – perhaps the TV exposure will give them a hit, but they’ll have to be much better to make a career.
[3]
Iain Mew: Given the sheer number of different synth buzz and whirr tricks used to keep the verses interesting, it’s to JLS’ credit that the song still hangs together so well. A bit obviously trend-chasing to really stand out, but that’s got to be better than hopelessly out of touch, as would usually be expected from reality show runners up.
[6]
Matt Cibula: Good points: teenage gothickness, big 80s synth breakdown, fat hooks, awesome to have a British r&b pop group outdoing US r&b pop groups, would be happy to hear this on the radio. Bad points: heard most of it before a million times, don’t need so many people in the group if they’re not going to sing together on the single.
[7]
Dan MacRae: JLS have managed to take the “I would die without you” astethic from melodramatic to absolutely terrifying. Parts of this song are like the Metalocalypse episode where Toki is chastized by a child’s corpse for not spending time with her.
[2]
Martin Kavka: This is simply an obscene song. A guy tells his ex that “doctors” are predicting death unless the ex returns to him. What could be more passive-aggressive? Doesn’t he have any good qualities to advertise? Shouldn’t the ex remember that time he made breakfast, with perfectly poached eggs? Or the flowers? Or all the times he was such a good listener? No, of course not, because he is a horrible boyfriend — he’s That Guy Who Lazes Around The Flat Watching Gladiators. But wait, there’s more! He then ramps up the neurotic behavior with, “If I died, would you come to my funeral? Would you cry?” Who pulls this kind of shit? (And if he has to ask…) Perhaps if he were to stop using some falsely antiseptic idea of death to browbeat people, he just might be able to sustain a relationship. And if the doctors’ prognosis is correct? Well, good riddance to this asshole.
[0]
Chuck Eddy: Not even half pretty enough — when the heck did young male harmony groups stop having a falsetto guy? (Probably a couple decades after they stopped having a bassman. There oughta be a law…) But fortunately for JLS’s sake, they do have whoa-oagh-oagh’s that remind me just a wee tiny bit of “Tarzan Boy” by Baltimora, plus some wacky electronic noises at the end.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: No matter what time it had been released, it would have sounded like one of the also-ran boybands whose names you remember but whose songs you don’t.
[3]
Dear Dave: THANK YOU!
it took me about an hour of wracking my brains after i first heard this song to realize what song it sounded like – and I’m very relieved someone else saw it too – it really is quite obvious.
Isn’t the “beat agin” from some ’90s-y trance thing, or am I imagining an excellent song that doesn’t exist?
I didn’t mind this. You guys are too harsh on it. And sicne when did Kavka start sitting down every song on his psychiatrist couch? (Not that I mind, but he’s doing it to a lot of them. New career?)
That should be “beat again,” obviously.
Very little irritates me as much as (a) men singing songs so that they don’t have to listen to women and (b) pop songs that invoke death without any familiarity with it. This has both, so double the vitriol.
Come to think of it, women’s self-objectification in pop irritates me even more; my first [0] or [1] as a moral critique was Britney’s “Gimme More” in September 2007.
Hm…I think I can still justify liking “No Air” without getting any sense of Jordin Sparks having much familiarity of choking to death. Chris Brown on the other hand….um, well, sometimes lived experience doesn’t quite match up with what’s there on the record, y’know?
Britney’s “Gimme More” is pretty brilliant as self-objectification critique in and of itself — but I won’t go into that one here, as JLS don’t deserve the convo. (Y’all were a bit harsh, though, it’s kinda fun!)
Also, MK, steer clear of this Facebook group!
“Can’t Breathe with No Air”: Defenders of Life or Death Exaggeration in Pop
How could you lie to me?/Thought you would die for me
(Actually, it’s Priscilla Renea and some producer, not RiRi.)
Jonathan – you might be thinking of Ultrabeat’s ‘Pretty Green Eyes‘ from 2003.
#1. Argh.