Syco
Pop, 2015

It’s interesting to see that Little Mix’s latest effort ditches much of the R&B-heavy influences that marked their previous tracks for a more straightforward pop direction. Given that Fifth Harmony released an album at about the same time, it is as if the puppet masters decided to split the song pool into two types, and offered UK-based Little Mix the poppy ones while their US-based clone gets the more urban tracks. After all, everyone knows that people in the US only listen to R&B or country, while UK folks only go for pop and EDM!

Get Weird, as a result, is a listenable but rather toothless effort. The first single Black Magic is a nice and catchy ditty about using drugs to get people to like you, but the rest are just bland. There are tracks that try to capture the 1960’s vibe – Love Me Like You, Weird People – as well as saccharine ballads – the infidelity anthem Secret Love Song and the heartbreak song I Love You are basically variations of the same song and one can consider the latter to be a sequel of the former. There are the synth-heavy dance pop tunes, and so forth. Be careful of OMG, by the way – the ladies are channeling the bastard brats of Charli XCX and Kesha, and if you don’t like those ladies, this track can cause hey fever.

The whole thing feels rote and lifeless, as if the ladies are just going through the motions as if they are in a Katy Perry tribute band or something. This is a step back from their much better previous effort, and I wonder whether they should be polishing up their CVs for fast food joints soon, considering that the puppet masters are clearly giving Fifth Harmony the better songs. But at least Perrie Edwards will always have Zayn… oh, wait.