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MagnetJun 13, 2012On [A Joyful Noise] the fire of youth has been replaced by a sexy confidence that oozes cool. [No.88 p.54]
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May 14, 2012A great album full of slightly haywire, unpretentious pop music.
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May 11, 2012What's happened is a slight scaling-down of Ditto's approach, so as not to burst the hems of the more restrained arrangements. It's actually worked to her advantage.
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UncutMay 9, 2012A Joyful Noise strikes a healthy balance between tears-on-the-dancefloor hi-NRG and Gossip's bluesy swagger. [Jun 2012, p.73]
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May 29, 2012A Joyful Noise isn't as raw or immediate as any of the Gossip's earlier albums, which makes it a bit of a grower for anyone attached to the band's previous firepower.
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May 16, 2012Without a clear purpose, most of A Joyful Noise blends into a fog of wandering melodies and come-and-go beats that sound ambivalent about even wanting your attention.
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MojoJul 18, 2012Toweringly camp singles like the slinky Perfect World and an album to enjoy on shuffle. [Jun 2012, p.92]
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Q MagazineJun 20, 2012Serviceable camp pop as it is, there's little here to attract anyone who hasn't already bought into Gossip. [Jun 2012, p.102]
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May 14, 2012Most of these tunes are neither dog turd nor diamond. They're decent-ish disco-punk stompers sold by the vocal.
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May 10, 2012A Joyful Noise is a brave stab at something new.
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May 9, 2012You could argue that A Joyful Noise is the album Madonna should be brave enough to make. But it might also be the case that it's the album that Gossip should have been brave enough not to.
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May 9, 2012A Joyful Noise is the sound of Gossip taking their love of dance floor pop to its natural conclusion with their most obvious and accessible album yet.
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Jun 4, 2012[Song "Casualties of War" is] the sole promising moment on an album that ranges from average to disappointing. In the end, Joyful Noise feels like a stopgap.
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May 29, 2012While Gossip prove themselves capable practitioners of disco-fraught anthems like Noise's "Move In The Right Direction" and "Get Lost"--Ditto in particular continues to inject more nuance into her bullhorn vocals with every record--the most compelling tracks on A Joyful Noise are the few that don't entirely conform to the template.
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May 24, 2012Here they seem to have devolved, finally, into just plain pop.
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May 21, 2012Too often the songs here are forgettable, but Ditto continues to sing impressively.
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May 21, 2012An album that wears its disposability on its sleeve.
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Jun 15, 2012It's a boring album, it's a depressing album, but it's also a deeply cynical album.
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May 21, 2012In the end, though, the groans far outweigh the mindless fun.
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May 18, 2012A Joyful Noise is a femme-power event album too shallow to achieve the import its creators intended.
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May 17, 2012The results turn out to be lifeless instead of uplifting and accessible as they'd hoped.
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May 14, 2012The usually redoubtable Beth Ditto sounds less like the spirit of riot grrrl and more like a wannabe material girl.
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May 14, 2012Ditto & co ... appear to have disastrously lost their fire. Only "Love in a Foreign Place" shows the sort of strutting disco beast they are capable of. It's too little. But not, one still hopes, too late.
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May 15, 2012More problematic than the bad lyrics or air of disengagement is Higgins' involvement. Too much of the album sounds washed out and painfully clean.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 9 out of 13
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Mixed: 2 out of 13
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Negative: 2 out of 13
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Jun 25, 2012
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May 29, 2012
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May 26, 2012