JLS–Beat Again

Released 12 July 2009.
Billboard: NA
UK: #1.

If I review this as a reality-show-winners’ (though they actually got 2nd place) single, this on first glance looks excellent. This song is has a pretty workable R&Bish, danceable sound to it, and is probably quite a bit more memorable than almost every other reality-show-winners’ or second place singles that I can remember (off the top of my head, I can only remember Kelly Clarkson’s A Moment Like This, and… Bleeding Love, though that was actually Leona Lewis’ second single, after she covered A Moment Like This, and also partly because of Eurovision, Tom Dice’s Me And My Guitar which is also his second single after HE covered Bleeding Love!). The blue-red-green-yellow backing theme on the CD cover looks pretty nice too.

In terms of sound, the song’s a pretty harmless piece and actually quite nice to listen to; it’s not bad for casual listening. The little electro effects e.g. tune out at beginning of 2nd verse are decent, and the chorus is pretty catchy too. The bridge sounds pretty good and the ending part is nice too – all in all, it’s a reasonably refined, if standard kind of work.

However, this is not a sing I can sing at all, much like BedRock – though unlike BedRock, which I can’t sing because I would utterly laugh while failing to sing Call me Mr. Flintstone, I can make your bed rock, this one is more an issue of disgust than humour.

Damn
The doctor’s just finished telling me there’s no time
Losing you could be the end of me, and that I
Should do the things that I wanna do, how could I
Without you without you ooh ooh

In terms of cheese, this one destroys Replay completely, I think – the idea of death should one’s lover leave one is quite a bad one, I think. It seems that the persona in the song shows elements of calculated emotional blackmail too… Let’s look at the chorus.

Let’s just get back together, we should’ve never broke up
They’re telling me that my heart wont beat again
We should have stayed together, cause when you left me it stopped
They’re telling me that my heart wont beat again
Won’t beat again
Its killing me…

This is where the problem of mixing the idea of the heart as a muscle supporting the body’s functions, and as a centre of emotions and feelings comes in. If your heart stopped when she left you, she couldn’t have left you for very long, and besides it’d be nigh impossible to sing a 3:21 (or so) song. I wouldn’t really complain about this normally – the idea of having one’s heart stop can figuratively mean a shock of some sort, but the use of the doctor at the beginning of verse 1 makes it a problem, the mention of “love CPR” in the bridge, and most scarily, the sheer spookiness of verse 2:

If I died, yeah would you come to my funeral?
Would you cry?
Would you feel some regret that we didn’t try?
Or would you fall apart the same as I
And would it always haunt you baby that you missed your chance to save me?
Cos you know its not too late
(Hey hey heeeeeey)

Ouch. It’s downright disturbing.

OVERALL SCORE = 5.5 / 10
For a reality-talent-show group, I cannot deny that JLS has put forth a musically strong first effort with Beat Again. I find the song reasonably well constructed and catchy; it’s pleasing as a casual listen, but the incredibly questionable lyrics knock this one down a point or two.