This pick from Joshua is really giving us a chance to sink our teeth into Readers’ Week…

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Edward Okulicz: Most generations get The Bangles that they deserve, but on the basis of this single, the current one hit the jackpot. “Last One” has a hard-kicking, hip-swaying beat, girl-gang call-and-response choruses and Cristal Ramirez gives as emotionally nuanced a performance as you can get away with while still making power pop — that breathy, defeated chorus at the end is a great crying into your hairbrush while singing into it moment. The guitars catalogue the emotional rollercoaster as well as the lyrics. Oh, and there’s a Spanish version too. 500 million Spanish speakers have no excuse to not love it and neither do you.
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John Seroff: Lead vocalist Cristal Ramirez doesn’t yet have Hayley’s chops (who does?), but danged if “Last One” doesn’t bring some distinctly pre-trop Paramore vibes to the table. A lovingly calibrated, foot-stomping, shout-along that makes a hopeless break-up sound like a really good time.
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Alfred Soto: The way they pitch their manipulated call and response vocals at a stratospheric key recalls The 1975. Their verses have a taut crunch. A little slower and “Last One” could’ve been country. At last Utah can boast of something less awful than Mitt Romney and Orrin Hatch.
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Katherine St Asaph: I held out hope for the first few seconds of hard-driving beat, even as the disco licks and pitch-shifted vocals suggested “Last One” had no interesting ideas. And sure enough: saccharine nothing chorus, all tension gone. Why do artists do this?
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Vikram Joseph: [gruff Alan Sugar voice] This week on The Apprentice we’re at the world-famous O2 Arena. As you know, it is a modern building in which pop music is often performed. That’s right — your task this week is to write a critically-acclaimed modern pop song! Now get to work. [end Alan Sugar] ~~ cut to end of episode ~~ The boys’ team wrote a song that sounds like Ed Sheeran, and as a result they have all been eliminated! The girls’ team, meanwhile, have produced a gleaming facsimile of a modern pop song. There are gang vocals and syncopated clean guitar lines, just like Haim! There’s a stomping country-pop beat! It could fit seamlessly onto the playlist at your local alt-pop night, right between Carly Rae Jepsen and Kim Petras! It almost sounds like a real song made by real people with real emotions!
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Nortey Dowuona: Sharp, glittering guitars are slipped into the front of the mix while the loping, rumbling bass is stuffed behind the sofa as the drums careen around Cristal, who holds it all together in her index as she swirls the froth into a fluffy, plush tornado.
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Joshua Minsoo Kim: With a hook this catchy, “Last One” manages to capture the specific feeling of getting your heart pulled in multiple directions. The Aces know that their lover has failed them, so they sing about moving on. Deep down they know they won’t: “I can’t stop, I can’t start without you.” When was the last time a song about wanting to fall out of love made you want to do the exact opposite?
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