Obviously there’s no need for her now Jessie J’s changed everything, but it’s nice to see she’s still giving it a go…

[Video][Website]
[6.83]

Katherine St Asaph: This is the eightieth time I’ve listened to “Broken Record” in the past two hours. I mirror Katy in the video a bit more each time, you should see me: eyes closed, lips parted, feeling like I should grasp for something. Partly it’s me being ridiculous, but mostly it’s the song: how the percussion speeds up into itself at the beginning, like it’s inhaling, how the melody brushes against the background at just the right points, the 4/4 inevitability of it all. Then how everything falls to a clatter before the choruses, how the kid-like boast of “I tried my best” subsides to a pianissimo “I’d give my heart to you so gladly” as it should, the entire swoon of a bridge, with backing vocals coming in just to flirt with the major key and that eerie ascending swirl toward the end and the total abandonment of rhythm and order. I’m infatuated; all my critical faculties are lost. For instance, I am supposed to point out how objectively slight this is, “Perfect Stranger” drained of decibels and sent floating in from another room. Or how its broken-record motif is both a cliche and dangling, suggesting the speaker wants to be felt up by vinyl. Or failing those, that the video puts Katy in a hotel (?) that’s more like a mahogany cloister, outfitted with a red-carpeted hallway and a secret dance room where the guy stares ponderously at a fucking crimson vortex. But I can’t even do that. Reveries present as archetypes, after all, and then as songs you can’t shake loose.
[9]

Jer Fairall: Remember when about a decade ago it seemed like a good idea to do dance remixes of Sarah McLachlan songs? Katy B does.
[3]

Alfred Soto: A better-than-average Eurodisco number pokes its head from behind the chassis of adult contemporary schlockarama. Credit Katy’s pipes — blame them too.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: I’ve grown to really like her strained high notes — there’s an appealing energy and emotional charge to them. The dubstep/garage backing is lively here too, and it’s got a decent tune and hook too.
[9]

Josh Love: This is fine but not nearly as sonically involving as “Katy on a Mission,” which itself wasn’t as satisfyingly bold as that Yasmin track we covered a few weeks back. This is pretty much just a standard-issue club-pop track with pallid R&B vox and a breakbeat in the chorus.
[6]

Jonathan Bogart: Is it Stockholm Syndrome, or am I finally beginning to cotton to modern British dance-pop? The ghostly, rushing harmonies make this for me more than the still rather tinny and preset production, but this is the first Katy B set of lyrics that strike me as a song, and not just an attitude copped over a beat.
[7]