Happiness - Hurts
  • Band Name: Hurts
  • Record Label: RCA
  • Release Date: Sep 6, 2010
Happiness Image
Metascore
58 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critics What's this?

User Score
8.0 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 17 Ratings

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  • Summary: The debut album for the duo from Manchester, England, features Kylie Minogue on one track.

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. PopMatters
    90
    Singer Theo Hutchcraft's voice is dramatic but elegant and carries each melody with a sense of purpose. His delivery is calm and composed, but he lets the words he has written speak for themselves; there's no ambiguity in these words.
  2. New Musical Express (NME)
    80
    Only a joyless weirdo could deny that these are fearsomely well-crafted songs, as clean-lined and immaculate as a well-cut suit.
  3. musicOMH.com
    60
    It's this capacity to write immediately affecting songs coupled with an effortless cool that will see Hurts catapulted towards stardom. The fact that the album tails off dramatically with a series of appalling ballads in the shape of The Water and Unspoken will almost certainly be overlooked in favour of the classy sounds of Wonderful Life or the glorious pulsing anthem of Better Than Love.
  4. BBC Music
    60
    Style and gravitas are all very well--if Hurts could also have been consistent with the substance, Happiness would have trounced its 80s counterparts and many of its contemporaries, too.

See all 9 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 3
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 3
  3. Negative: 0 out of 3
  1. Insatiableone
    9
    The songs from Happiness are thoughtful, melancholy and very modern. I must admit, the album has a real sense of style that's been missing in British pop for some time. Joe Copplestone of Pop Matters is bang on the money when he said that the duo sings "simple lyrical messages of love, pain and yearning that most pop acts could not deliver sincerely if they tried". I implore you to buy this.… Collapse
  2. kowalski
    8
    A very well crafted debut bold, imaginative, and original. Silver lining serves as the perfect opening, a perfect pop song with an edge; Wonderful life is well known for everyone who hasn't been living under a rock; Sunday, Stay, Better than love stand out as perfectly produced and sung higher-shelf-pop anthems. Happiness takes pop to a higher level, and does so without looking down on the rest.… Expand
  3. rawburn
    7
    Half mediocre, half amazing to my ears. Not necessarily anything new in terms of sound, but a refreshing change from much of the hum-drum out there right now. 'Better Than Love' is the stand-out track, but 'Stay' should get them plenty of airplay.… Expand

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