Pure Shores - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

"Pure Shores" was critically acclaimed by music critics worldwide, who praised it for its "lush, electronic soundscapes". Cameron Adams from Herald Sun classified it as "futuristic dream-pop" and ranked it at number 17 on the his top 100 songs of the 2000–2009 decade. He also gave the song four stars out of five. PlayLouder.com gave it a positive review, saying; "This was the single that saw the Saints out-performing every other girl group on the planet, ditching the famous-for-being-famous tag, and finally becoming the statuesque pop goddesses they always claimed to be. Russell Bailler from New Zealand Herald highlighted the song along with "Black Coffee" and "Surrender", saying the song is "a great single which is also the best thing here ." Theresa Johnston from About.com listed the song in the "Top Picks for Romantic Songs".

Nigel Packer from BBC Music highlighted the song from the album. Amy Fleming from The Guardian posted an article called Songs to have babies to (no, not Push It). She listed the song on the list, but called the song a "harmless, feelgood, uplifting, and a bit of ambient " and was also labelled "mellow infectious]." Entertainment Weekly reviewed the soundtrack and said along with Sugar Ray's song "Spinning Away", the songs were "bright". Mixmag said along with Barry Adamson's song "Business as Usual", the songs were "superb". On 18 October 2011, David Gerges from The Daily Mail had listed the song on his "Most Relaxing Songs Ever Created" at number seven. Conversely, allmusic gave the song a rating of two out of five stars.

The song received many nominations and accolades for the single. "Pure Shores" had won the Ivor Novello Award for Most Performed Work. Not long after, the song was then nominated for two BRIT Award for Best British Single and Best British Video in 2001, but lost both awards to Robbie Williams' "Rock DJ". The song also won the Capital FM choice for Best Song. According to BBC Radio 2, "Pure Shores" is the 14th most played song on that station since 2009.