The Singles Jukebox

Band with exclamation point searching for exclamation point of a song.

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[5.22]

Pete Baran: I want this low-rent “No Scrubs” to be more banging. And possibly not with lyrics written in the 1970’s. Surely their their use of harsh insults like “Dud” and “Bozo” would make Nicki Minaj blush. I think if you are writing a party banger that you can play to your parents, you’ve made a mistake. Inept enough to be endearing, mind.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Jade says “‘Bad Date’ was one of the quickest tracks we’ve ever recorded and also the easiest rap” – well, usually happens when you crib “Bust a Move” and get out of the way of the sonics. Just make sure to intone “this is a bad date” and WE ARE THERE.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Given that Alex and Jade are essentially little sisters to Jacqui and Carrie, from whom even B-sides get room on my iPod, I’m going to try really hard to compare this objectively. “Bad Date” is maddeningly vague, but so were Shampoo’s big singles, so it’s not fair to want cringing dossiers on Deodorant-Hands Guy or Anti-Semitic Cell Phone Jammer Dude. (Erm.) Oh My! slurs their vocals like Nadia Oh instead of shouting like pop-punkers, but only one can be the sound of 2012. This is slight, but the argument that Shampoo wasn’t slight is a thinkpiece too thinky, as is the one that they never treated old-time gender divvying with glee. And those were all my objections. Huh.
[7]

Iain Mew: It starts off in resigned disbelief, the cheap glitz of the backing track matching the locations they end up in then turning increasingly suffocating as things deteriorate. They make a decision that they want to escape and the song hurtles energetically through Soho and into “Material Girl”, stopping along the way for a single gleeful put-down of “wrong!” as as beats and voices pile up for emphasis. Consistently sharp and funny in a way that “Dirty Dancer” wasn’t, the only thing preventing me from falling for the song the echo on the title phrase. I have a Pavlovian negative reaction to it, probably a result of listening to too many radio rips obscured by exactly the same technique.
[6]

Alfred Soto: The video game effects and the M.I.A.-meets-Elastica anomie are amusing, but Our Singer runs out of material a quarter of the way before the end.
[3]

John Seroff: Imagine a British Fannypack version of “No Scrubs”.  Wait, why imagine?  It’s here now!  Equally cute and annoying, “Bad Date” is an early taste of what we’re in for when the generation raised on Yo Gabba Gabba reaches voting age.  Enjoy it while you’re still able to.
[5]

Sally O’Rourke: My first encounter with Oh My! left me with stars in my eyes. Attitude, a sense of humor, hooks to spare with enough restraint to keep it classy – perhaps I was naïve, but I thought maybe there was something there. The more I got to know Oh My!, though, the more I started to suspect they lacked depth. The same ideas kept coming up over and over, each time a little less clever and memorable and fun. Then: the painful “Bad Date,” where the girls crossed the line from confident and funny to bitchy and mean-spirited, mocking some cheapskate as if insecure with their own chintzy production values. Worst of all, they wouldn’t stop playing the break from “Party Rock Anthem.” I sadly realized that the time has come to break it off with Oh My! for good. Still, I’ll always think back fondly on our first time around.
[4]

Doug Robertson: It’s tinny, and it sounds like it was written in the same time as it took to record it, quite probably in the loo during a night out with a particularly unimpressive suitor, but these reasons are exactly why it’s brilliant. There’s no sense of label expectations and it’s unlikely that a focus group would even give them the time of day, let alone offer suggestions to smooth their rough edges in a bid to make them appeal to the mass market. It’s just two girls who sound like they’re having the time of their life and just happen to create pop anthems which lock on to your ears like a beat seeking missile. Let’s just hope they don’t go down the similarly ace Dolly Rockers route – what do you mean, who? – and actually carry on making music rather than being content to become the militant wing of the Tutu Marketing Board.
[9]

Michaela Drapes: Please forgive me, but since I didn’t get to blurb “Dirty Dancer,” I can say this now: DUBSTEP BANANARAMA. Sweet!
[7]