Sadly the Head and the Heart’s new single is not called “Joel Corry x MNEK.”
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Thomas Inskeep: Paint-by-numbers Brit-house from Corry, with ebullient vocals from MNEK. Nothing particularly great, but very hummable.
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William John: It’s pleasing to see that Joel Corry, presumably heeding the stern rebukes of Singles Jukebox writers, has started to credit his vocalists. It’s also wonderful to see MNEK attaining commercial success, especially after his inventive debut album Language could barely manage a tissue-paper certification. There have been far worse number-one singles than this, but I can’t escape the feeling that had “Head & Heart” appeared at the zenith of the UK dance-pop interzone on the British charts, which MNEK himself helped to usher in, it would’ve been dismissed as lesser, a Xerox with faded ink.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Language succeeded because the singer-songwriter feels so at home in his surroundings, building cohesive worlds around his unique voice that are nevertheless tuneful. “Head & Heart” is both less catchy and less distinctive than MNEK’s solo music, his perspective swallowed by shopping-mall beats. It’s an undistinguished way to get a hit, a lacuna of a dance track for a phantom summer.
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Will Adams: One would hope, given his considerable record as a house topliner, that MNEK could do something to elevate Joel Corry’s beige house template, but alas, we get a would-be crush song whose stock production leaves it inert.
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Katherine St Asaph: I assume the heart is the Disney-perky track and melody, like a hymn scored by Zedd, and the head is the buzzkill that pulls it down into minor key at the end of every line. (Which of the adversaries is responsible for the verses tracking this close to “I’m a Slave 4 U,” I’m not sure.) As a combination it doesn’t work at all — the melody becomes obnoxiously perky by the first few bars, that last note always sounds so damn distracting, and the sound was already getting dated by 2014.
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Scott Mildenhall: Does this have a faint melodic similarity to “Love Sex Magic,” or is that just reading too much into MNEK’s pop omniscience? The industry is lucky to have him: someone with such a feeling for the innovative and immediate, and the ability to share it with whichever producer du jour he’s put in a Zoom with. “Head & Heart” is not his most his distinctive work, but he’s no more on autopilot than Joel Corry, who is now three singles deep into establishing a sound that he will not be allowed to drop until it is bled completely dry.
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Alfred Soto: Delighted by MNEK’s earning his first Brit #1, I nevertheless must admit “Head & Heart” sounds like a 2013 post-pop house spelunker — and I still prefer “Ready for Your Love.”
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