Banned
Member Since: 4/30/2011
Posts: 38,486
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Metascore
65
Generally favorable reviews based on 10 critics
Metacritic reviews
Billboard
81
Original score: 81
Quote:
Overall, 5 Seconds of Summer is a delightful debut from a group that cannot be easily pigeonholed, and is worth paying attention to.
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All Music Guide
70
Quote:
Ultimately, 5 Seconds of Summer have crafted an album of songs that stick in your head like neon bubblegum on a hot summer sidewalk.
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Alternative Press
70
Original score: 3.5/5
Quote:
No one will argue 5 Seconds Of Summer is high art, but it ultimately works more often than it doesn’t. And, perhaps most important of all, it feels authentic.
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Los Angeles Times
63
Original score: 2.5/4
Quote:
Hemmings and his bandmates match these frank admissions with music that’s equally straightforward.
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The Guardian
60
Original score: 3/5
Quote:
A collective of (gulp) four YouTube stars, their chugging guitars, "hey hey heys" and stupidly catchy choruses recall Weezer and early Busted. Aimed squarely at the teenage market, it's shrill exuberance and lyrical mischief all round as songs leap and sometimes creak under the weight of their double entendres.
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The Observer
60
Original score: 3/5
Quote:
There's nothing desperately original about the 12 songs on their debut album – think Busted and McFly and, on Long Way Home, Wheatus's Teenage Dirtbag with the rough edges smoothed off. But they're delivered with such winning enthusiasm that they make an old formula seem fresh, even if carefully calculated lyrical references to "my Cobain shirt" suggest they're trying too hard to prove their punk credentials.
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Rolling Stone
60
Original score: 3/5
Quote:
The band's members pitched in writing for nearly every track on their debut, which starts with "She Looks So Perfect" and proceeds through 11 more übertame pop-punk songs about love and heartbreak that wish they were as great (power ballad "Beside You" comes closest). Still, their self-deprecating tunes have their charms.
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Kerrang!
60
Original score: N/A
Quote:
Although everything is rendered with a high-shine gloss and sanitised precision that makes it more saccharine than Sex Pistols, there's still an enjoyment to be had on a basic level. [5 Jul 2014, p.53]
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New York Daily News
60
Original score: 3/5
Quote:
In truth, 5 Seconds of Summer are unlikely to replace their elders any time soon. But they do provide a nice alternative--one with fetching songs and just enough sass to stand out.
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Boston Globe
50
Original score: N/A
Quote:
The lyrics leave no room for subtext--“Good girls,” goes the kickiest song’s thesis, “are bad girls that haven’t been caught”--and the gleaming instrumentation sounds untouched by human hands..
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Other reviews
Alter the Press!
90
Original score: 4.5/5
Quote:
It reminds us that they are just four young, cheeky guys and they want their music to be fun, which this debut has most certainly showed.
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Sugarscape
90
Original score: 4.5/5
Quote:
You know how the 5SOS boys have said that their aim is basically to bring the sond of late 90s and early noughties pop punk straight into 2014? Well that's exactly what they've gone and bloody done. There are glimpses of their biggest influences - from Green Day to Blink - running through the whole thing, but ultimately it's a Michael, Luke, Calum and Ashton record.
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Guardian Liberty Voice
80
Original score: 4/5
Quote:
If the group was hoping to build a bridge between the old and the new, they have definitely succeeded in the task. There is a bit of a punk-pop mash-up throughout most of the album and it works in their favor. It is loud enough to blast when you want to thrash around your room, but it is blended well enough to show that 5 Seconds of Summer have something good going on here.
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Noise Cannon
80
Original score: 8/10
Quote:
Their name may signify the depressing reality of a British summer but after a solid debut album from the Australian four-piece, boasting of anthemic pop-punk hooks and some of the best summer sing-a-longs, it seems their five seconds of fame isn’t fading anytime soon
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Renowned for Sound
70
Original score: 3.5/5
Quote:
5 Seconds of Summer deliver a solid debut with their self-titled album, especially considering they had a hand in writing every song. Fantastic vocals and brilliant instrumental melodies are evident throughout the entire album and the boys seem to have a clear idea of what sort of image and band they want to represent.
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Virgin Media
40
Original score: 2/5
Quote:
They are pop as a gateway drug, heartbreak-lite, with their 12 carefully calibrated mini-dramas about first love, growing pains and dizzy schools-out euphoria. At times, they make The Wanted sound like Joy Division.
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