Member Since: 4/28/2012
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Metacritic: 37 | Charlie Puth Nine Track Mind Review Thread
Metacritic: 37
The Guardian: 60
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Fresh from committing crimes against the English language with his chart-topping single Marvin Gaye – a collaboration with Meghan “All About That Bass” Trainor that co-opted the soul giant’s name into one of the more grammatically cavalier refrains of recent times – Charlie Puth releases his debut album. But there are no repeats of such lyrical misdemeanours here – instead the 24-year-old Puth errs on the side of caution.
...the standard of his songwriting is consistently high, and his central theme – romantic obsession that verges on the masochistic – makes for a record that softly burns. 3/5
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EW: 58
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Charlie Puth broke out in 2015 with “See You Again,” his tribute with Wiz Khalifa to the late actor Paul Walker for the Furious 7 soundtrack. Now Puth, who got his start uploading homemade videos on YouTube and has penned cuts for Jason Derulo and Pitbull, is making his formal introduction as a solo pop star with Nine Track Mind. He’s made his ambitions clear early with the album’s lead singles—the inescapable and irritating “Marvin Gaye” and “One Call Away”—but the 11-track collection here won’t get him into the same clubhouse as Justin Timberlake. 3/5
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AllMusic: 40
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The title suggests our singer/songwriter can't be confined to any one lane -- that his mind moves so fast, it doesn't run on one track but nine. For all this bluster, Charlie Puth essentially has two modes on his 2016 debut: balladeer and song-and-dance man. If the latter doesn't surface as often as the former, it nevertheless rules the roost on Nine Track Mind because in the bottom of his heart, Puth is a music theater kid chomping at the bit to put on a snazzy show. He keeps things a little subdued -- his schtick is that he's sensitive, feeling everything a little bit too deeply. Vulnerability is often an asset to singers, particularly in matters concerning love, but Puth's problem is that he feels stage-managed; you can sense him hitting his marks. 2/5
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The Observer (UK): 40
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His debut album aims for credible, vintage soul-pop but is hampered by a severe lack of personality. My Gospel and Left Right Left are basically crude Bruno Mars facsimiles, while in the inordinately embarrassing No 1 single Marvin Gaye, Puth casts himself as the male version of the song’s featured guest, Meghan Trainor. 2/5
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Spin: 30
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Charlie Puth has arrived, with his very own album ready for purchase, and he’s been working on this thing like you wouldn’t believe, writing some stuff, producing some stuff, even calling up Shy Carter to see if he had a little free time to swing by for a guest verse. (Shy Carter, unsurprisingly, did have a little free time to swing by for a guest verse.) And as a full-length presentation of the man’s creative convictions, it’s perfect, in a way — sleek, slow, totally anodyne. Nine Track Mind is the kind of pure pap wholly appropriate for a clear-voiced Nice Guy who first carved out his artistic ambitions (let’s just quote his deadpan Wikipedia bio here) writing “intro jingles for the videos of the Vlogger family the Shaytards.” Sounds pretty dreary to me, but I suppose in our post-YouTube creative economy it’s about the equivalent of being a Neil Diamond roadie.
The most standout feature of Nine Track Mind might be its rhythmic consistency, an exercise in deceleration which will come as a relief to those Sam Smith fans distrustful of that bruise-voiced crooner’s occasional excursions outside the valley of the torch song. When Selena Gomez finally swings by for her relatively upbeat duet feature (a breezy poolside whiff of coconut water entitled “We Don’t Talk Anymore”), the mild change in tempo risks bringing on decompression sickness.
Amid all the inoffensive dross of Nine Track Mind — which amounts to one thing you can do with a degree from Berklee I guess — the vexing “Marvin Gaye” is at least worthy of being deemed a genuine irritant. 2/5
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Pitchfork: 25
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There are 12 tracks on Charlie Puth’s debut album Nine Track Mind, which is either three or 12 too many. But no matter; the album is a smoothly executed pitch deck of exactly what will perform on pop radio in 2016, and Puth—pronounced "Pooth," and the slice through his right eyebrow is from a childhood canine attack, if you’re wondering—will do just fine. The 24-year-old Berklee College of Music graduate and former YouTube star of the acoustic-cover variety has already had three top 40 singles, all since last February: first, the demonic Meghan Trainor duet "Marvin Gaye," then, the Paul Walker Memorial Beanie Baby track "See You Again" (featuring Wiz Khalifa), then "One Call Away," an ocean of syrup that sounds exactly like "See You Again," and is the first song on the LP.
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Q Magazine: 20
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Nine Track Mind whimpers like a sick kitten. [Mar 2016, p.113]
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Why don't critics use ha? The male Meghan Trainor, indeed.
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