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May 17, 2018Bay never seems like he's pandering; he sounds thrilled that he has a chance to make the kind of layered, genre-bending pop that he wants to make, and listeners may well find that freedom alluring.
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Q MagazineMay 16, 2018This follow-up displays an admirable desire for transformation. [Jun 2018, p.111]
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May 16, 2018This adds up to a solid album that presents as an immediate difference to what went before, even if it does not roam too far from the grounds of its creator’s past. That certainly doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed. Electric Light is a thoroughly immersive ride that shows James Bay has plenty of ideas brimming in that now hatless head.
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May 18, 2018For all the gloss and floss that accompanies the release of Electric Light, Bay is still very much at home in the earnest ruminations and folk-rocky tones of his debut, only now with higher production values and more bounce to the ounce. With that, “Electric Light” has the feel of a transitional effort; one that safely dips its toe in the cool Ocean front of soul synth-phonica, while maintaining Bay’s clay feel and rootsy emotionalism.
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May 30, 2018While producer Paul Epworth’s contribution is accomplished, adding a dynamism that maintains our attention throughout, the record seems to lack an underlying theme. Bay has been a bit too clever for his own good, and on Electric Light fails to latch onto a identity that makes him truly unique.
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May 18, 2018It’s all accomplished and well-produced--as an introduction to these sounds, it’s absolutely on the money--but perhaps too scattershot to really gel.
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MojoMay 16, 2018This ambitious record loses subtlety in the grand Springsteen-ish gestures of songs like Just For Tonight. Bay fares better with the looped, crunchy soul and more nuanced lyrics of Fade Out and Slide. [Jun 2018, p.95]
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May 16, 2018There’s a little of Prince in the sensuousness of certain songs, but Bay doesn’t possess that same crackling sexual energy as the Purple One; he’s more brooding, introspective.
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May 18, 2018All Bay has really done is exchange one set of generic production clichés for another.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 38 out of 45
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Mixed: 3 out of 45
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Negative: 4 out of 45
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May 18, 2018
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May 18, 2018
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Sep 9, 2018