Eat the rich, or at the very least tax their shoes.

[Video][Website]
[7.88]

Ian Mathers: The combination of breezily laid back and beautifully pissed off here is just sublime. The kind of song you can absolutely imagine becoming a huge hit on the radio both with people who are living those lyrics and those who are never going to listen to let alone understand them.
[9]

Nortey Dowuona: The galloping guitar and sidewinding bass feel so sinewy and warm around Yola’s deep, throaty voice. There’s a bracing pride in her words as she strikes back at the massively skewed world set against us. 
[7]

Samson Savill de Jong: Yola clearly knows how to intwine politics into her songwriting. Her themes are universal but underpinned by her own experiences and beliefs, and she gets her point across clearly without proselytising. The song sounds pretty upbeat, despite its message of refusing to let things just continue and fighting against it, but the contrast works rather than holding it back. It’s not the most complex song; musically it doesn’t particularly go anywhere. But Yola comes and does what she sets out to do, and maybe more out there music might have got in the way.
[7]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: In the midst of classic electric twang and slide guitar, Yola said make the bass gallop, belt the verse, fight the power, and Tax the Rich. 
[10]

Thomas Inskeep: Yola goes less country and leans into the Stax on “Diamond Studded Shoes”; I just wish this sounded a little more vibrant and less like something trapped in amber. Blame producer Dan Auerbach for that, I guess. Lyrically, this look at income inequality is great.
[5]

Edward Okulicz: The verses to this are absolutely fantastic, fitting beautifully into country, soul and protest song traditions; part of a fight is the hope of triumph, and that’s in every syllable Yola sings. The actual chorus (“you know it isn’t, you know it isn’t”) sounds a bit like a placeholder waiting for something better to replace it, but overall “Diamond Studded Shoes” nails that feeling of sounding like something old that’s just become very fitting to the times.
[8]

Leah Isobel: Yola’s voice is rich and agile enough to sell a generic line like “You beat it into us like a hammer,” which means that when she gets to sing “They buy diamond-studded shoes with our taxes” you hear every single inch of her bitter humor, smoldering rage, resignation, and resolve. 
[8]

Al Varela: “Diamond Studded Shoes” might be the best song Yola has ever made. One that’s so full of joyous energy that it’s impossible not to get sucked into its old-school charm. Yola is a delightful singer and her energy singing about the dire state of the world but still having the will to fight makes the skippy percussion and twang of the guitars all the more infectious. It’s a gospel-country blend that calls back to the kind of music you’d hear at a saloon, but still has that modern touch to remind you of how timeless this kind of music can be. 
[9]

Song title or rejected ’80s buddy cop pitch? (Song title.)

[Video][Website]
[7.14]

Samson Savill de Jong: Proof that the best way to write something universal is to write something intensely personal. Apparently Lucy Dacus only realised she was writing about her younger self at the same point most people will when listening to this song, ie halfway through, but it’s really impossible to hear it being about anything else once you clock it. Growing up continues to terrify me, but this song, looking back with a bittersweet eye, nevertheless contains the hope that where you end up might not be what you imagined, but it just might be alright. The emotions aren’t that simple, because living isn’t that simple, but this captures the emotional complexity expertly.
[9]

Vikram Joseph: There was a tweet (or more likely several iterations of the same one) that went viral in March or April last year; something to the effect of “if you’re thinking about messaging your ex in lockdown, don’t.” For those of us especially prone to pining for the imperfect past, there was something about that weird, disconcerting period — the whiplash that resulted when our bodies froze in place and our minds refused to — that exacerbated that tendency. There was something about the acute suspension of the forward motion of our lives that sent us hurtling into the past. I mostly only cry at films and TV shows, but on a sticky night in early summer I walked through east London in actual floods of tears because a guy I’d dated for an improbably short period of time two years earlier sent me a vaguely sentimental message on Facebook. This is the sort of crippling, disproportionate nostalgia that Lucy Dacus captures on “Hot & Heavy”, an achingly familiar bit of breezy indie-rock with the weight of an emotional juggernaut. Dacus is a much more direct songwriter than some of her peers, and this serves her well here; the song plays out in a single still-frame, in which she depicts not just the tidal-wave of memory but also effectively sketches out the other character in the story, who was “underestimated and overprotected” but has blossomed into something every bit as special as Dacus imagined they would. It’s hard not to read this in the light of unrequited (or partially requited?) queer longing – “you let me in your world until you had enough”; “couldn’t trust myself to proceed with caution”. You could write a novel about these protagonists. I can’t help but wonder if this flight of nostalgia came to her during those long, emotionally jet-lagged lockdown weeks.
[8]

Juana Giaimo: A couple of years ago I’d probably give this a higher rating, but I’m getting tired of these kind of indie songs with doubled vocals and harmonies, a melody consisting of one word after the other with almost no breaks, the soft strumming of an electric guitar and a couple of keyboard notes here and there. Songs are partly about formulas, of course, but this has turned into a cliché of how nostalgic emotions should sound and it’s just getting boring.
[5]

Alfred Soto: I had the lame-ass “Cold & Light” dismissal ready to go until the cacophony in the last third forced a re-evaluation. Turns out “Hot & Heavy” has cool rhythmic lurches and grace notes (e.g. the double-tracked vocals) and lyrics like “You were a secret to yourself.” I’m still getting used to Lucy Dacus’ timbre, though.
[6]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: Digging into the same sonic landscape as her cover of “Dancing in the Dark” from 2019, Dacus returns to the laughing-while-crying approach that I sorely missed on “Thumbs”. Lines like “You were a secret to yourself/You couldn’t keep from anyone else” punch harder over the upbeat guitar and drums, punctuated by half time measures in a chorus that, while repeated, still feels like the stream-of-consciousness lyricism that defines the best of Dacus’s work.
[8]

Ian Mathers: My favourite part is actually that ringing outro; it’s a really beautiful modulation of the steadily churning part of the song earlier on that works better for me than the more restrained bits. (I’m a sucker for those lyrics but they’re hitting me hardest when the music is loudest, for some reason.) At this point I know from experience that there’s like a 60%+ chance I’ll be back here in a month saying I underrated this one by a point or more, but the blurb is due now and I’m just not there yet.
[7]

Dorian Sinclair: “Hot & Heavy” has to it a circularity, a looping structure. It starts with the melody, which is tightly anchored to a low E — Dacus circles around it, but even when she steps away for a bar or two, gravity pulls her back. It’s carried into the lyrics: she sings of coming back to the start, then later in the song does exactly that, repeating the first verse verbatim. Words echo within and between verses, culminating in the bridge’s “over and over and over and over again” and “over it, over it, over it, over it”. Then, just as she seems most stuck, a shift — the final verse breaks away from the loop, climbing higher than anything we’ve seen in the song so far. Ultimately, though, it drops back to earth and fades into the extended instrumental groove. We’ve found a new pattern, but like the old it coils back on itself. A circularity, a looping structure.
[7]

Rumors that Marina’s new album comes with a branded bottle of syrup of ipecac are unconfirmed.

[Video]
[5.25]

Leah Isobel: A classic Marina banger: overripe vocals, questionable lyrics, undeniable hooks.
[6]

Ian Mathers: I cannot wait until someone figures out how to seamlessly merge this and “We Didn’t Start the Fire” and uses it to soundtrack a montage of all the Twitter Main Characters from the last couple of years and my head finally explodes.
[3]

Dede Akolo: Political music, ~ in these trying times ~, really misses the mark for me. Using direct references to capitalism, #metoo, Britney Spears, quarantine, and American imperialism all feel… trite. This may be my deep pessimism about humanity at the moment but what separates MARINA from say Lorde’s “Perfect Places” is this assertion that we can save the world. While both musicians are making “songs for this generation”, Lorde doesn’t predicate the song thinking we are “witches” or Captain Planet and the Planeteers. This song feels reminiscent of that Tumblr quote, “we are the [descendants] of the witches you weren’t able to burn”. It’s good in theory and must feel good for Diamandis while she was writing and performing it. What falls flat for me is how external it all feels. It is still magical thinking. “[A]ll my friends are witches” “mystical bitches”  borders on Girlboss behavior. The way that Diamandis positions us, feminists, as the solution as if we have control of the situation. Studies show that many people just suck and just are racist and misogynistic. Now that we have the terminology to identify and heal from that bigotry it doesn’t mean we have the means to control it. Never should we give up the fight to protect and serve those persecuted by oppression in public health decisions and policies. However, I can never ‘bop’ to pop songs that treat us like superheroes when in reality… we just aren’t.
[6]

Mark Sinker: Billy Joel feminist? Curl your rage into a KISS! Lene Lovich thinks-balloon? Tiktok witches HEX THE MOON! Honestly hard to dislike something this goofily upfront and scatterbrained and absurd, with its wide-eyed grin and its world-changing intentions and its grand daft hook.
[7]

Dorian Sinclair: Back in 2012, I pitched an article to a prominent feminist magazine about the gender politics of MARINA (and, at the time, her Diamonds)’s album Electra Heart. While they said yes, the piece never ended up getting finished, because the deeper you drill into the politics of that album, the less coherent they get. Which is fine! I love that album, and not everyone needs to be a Political Artist. The problem is, she clearly wants to be — and while we’ve moved from the realm of subtext firmly into the textual, the analysis is as muddy as ever. “Purge the Poison” is a madlib of topical issues, namechecking basically every political ill you can think of, but in the end it says very little about any of them. That said, at least it’s musically more fun than LOVE + FEAR, even if the slowed-down chorus reprises are badly overwrought.
[4]

Samson Savill de Jong: Ah political songs which consist of just listing political things that’ve happened are returning, truly nature is healing. 
[3]

Edward Okulicz: If it’s a load of cliches and pop cultural references and hashtags thrown together in an artless way that sounds like it’s supposed to be artful, then that’s as close to a diagnostic as you can get for “is this a MARINA single?” This might be the catchiest Gish Gallop of a song I’ve ever heard.
[6]

Oliver Maier: Lots of pushback on the lyrics here, which is to be expected, but there’s precedent for them being the way they are. Marina is rarely not heavy-handed, though this hasn’t really been a problem historically; The Family Jewels was kitschy and precocious enough that it worked in her favour, Electra Heart found its rightful cult audience and Froot mostly reined it in (Love + Fear didn’t have any lyrics, or music). “Purge the Poison,” like preceding single “Man’s World,” rails against a loose series of societal ills in a way that feels earnest and well-intentioned, but also more than a little out of touch. The moments where she speaks metaphorically are generally stronger and more coherent than when she gets clumsily specific. Still, if Matty Healy can howl his way into general critical approval with a bit of manic doomsaying-via-doomscrolling then I’m willing to give Marina a pass for the same thing, not least because it’s as flamboyant and un-selfconscious and catchy as a song by her should be. I’ll take cringe in technicolour over tasteful monochrome most days of the week.
[7]

Rina, with Elton. Are we still stanning?

[Video]
[3.78]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: If you know, you know — and I am so, so truly happy that you do.
[9]

Alfred Soto: My college students know Elton John: his biggest tunes, his sexuality, his presence in culture. They’d listen to “Bennie and the Jets” or even “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” over this well-intentioned twaddle. The breathy catch in Rina Sawayama’s voice hasn’t lost its appeal, but lyrics like “We don’t need to be related to relate” mow her down.
[1]

Samson Savill de Jong: This’ll probably mean a lot to some people, particularly some struggling queer kids, and that can only be counted as a good thing which I’m truly happy for. But this is utter schlock, and I didn’t feel anything listening to it (or at least, not the things the song wants me to). For Rina Sawayama — who normally will make something interesting even if you happen to not like it — to make this by the numbers dirge of an inspiration porn “power” ballad is particularly disappointing. The temptation is to blame Elton John’s involvement, and his singing is noticeably worse than Rina, but I’ve listened to the original and it’s only marginally better. This is the song Rina wanted to make, and for what it’s worth, as generic as it is I don’t think it’s cynical, it doesn’t come off as a calculated ploy. But no amount of goodwill can get away from how lazy, uninspired and uninspiring this song is to me.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: I understand that duetting with Elton John often results in artists going in directions they might not otherwise, but I really didn’t expect Sawayama to sound as if she’s writing a song for a Disney princess. This is an over-orchestrated pile of overemotional goo.
[3]

Dede Akolo: This collaboration is unexpectedly very good despite my reservations about twenty-first-century terminology being used in a saccharine sweet ballad. I think I would prefer an acoustic, piano-only, version of this song that lets these two surprisingly well-paired singers shine together. The queers deserve this type of song. Sentimentally, this pulls all the right strings. Rina has an amazing lower range and Elton is… Elton John ya know? However, this song still doesn’t have the melodic line or the precise lyricism to have it really stick in my head. I would have preferred something more metaphorical and descriptive showing the scenes of queerplatonic love. It all just hits the nail on the head a little too hard. I love what it’s doing but it slipped right out of my head the second it ended. The “she’s bi-racial” song has more staying power, unfortunately.
[6]

Joshua Lu: My favorite queer Rina Sawayama song is “Cherry”, which tackles queerness by not centering it as the core message, but simply a facet of the narrative. It’s not that I don’t want to hear Rina expound on her pansexuality/bisexuality, but rather I appreciate how she doesn’t feel the need to do so — she sings about her experience, an experience borne out of this part of her identity, and no further explanation or justification is needed. “Chosen Family” decides instead to make this queerness the core message, and its preachiness actively gets in its own way. Yes, you aren’t really related to your chosen family! Your chosen family isn’t actually your family, like me and Elton John! Did you get that you don’t have to be related? There is something genuinely moving about hearing two incredibly different artists profess solidarity through their queerness, but from the tautological lyrics to the Rachel Platten piano, the song rings like an explanation of queer concepts to straight people instead of a celebration.
[4]

Camille Nibungco: “Chosen Family” never stuck out to me as a standout song from Rina’s most recent releases however I do understand its lyrical importance towards the LGBTQ+ community/alphabet mafia and having a queer icon of cultural importance like Elton John is probably really significant for her queer fans. However, with or without Elton John, I’m still pretty lukewarm about this song and my opinion hasn’t changed.
[4]

Vikram Joseph: The devil works hard, but whoever it is that Elton John’s employed to persuade pop stars that his creaky, affected vocals are worth having on their songs works harder. The album version of “Chosen Family” is absolutely soppy enough without the hyper-Disneyfied treatment it gets here, and Rina — who identifies as pansexual — uses the queer concept of the chosen family (I prefer Armistead Maupin’s more poetic term “logical family,” but sure) in a way that’s so overwhelmingly literal and sincere that it just feels somehow cheap. (In fairness, songs about queer safe spaces are always going to suffer by comparison to the gold standard of the genre). Rina’s vocals sound great, but Elton John sounds like a Simpsons parody of himself (the way he sings “genes or a surname” is, honestly, grotesque). Ditch him.
[4]

Will Adams: I don’t doubt the sincerity, but even then its original form, “Chosen Family” was marshmallow fluff levels of cloying. This re-record doubles down on the saccharine and becomes a near unlistenable ballad. Rina’s new vocal is strained, pushing for Gaga theatrics to match Elton John’s own theatrics, resulting in both singers giving unearned seriousness to the already tough-to swallow lyrics (“We don’t need to share genes or a surname!” “I chose you! You chose me!”). Contrast with the now ten years old “Born This Way” — which had the good sense to embody queer empowerment with a rip-roaring arrangement and to actually say something meaningful (“whether gay, straight or bi / lesbian, transgender life”) — and “Chosen Family” feels all the more empty of a statement.
[1]

One of the more unconventional song title formats we’ve had in a while…

[Video]
[6.29]

Thomas Inskeep: While producer Bizarrap lays down a slightly broken reggaeton/trap beat that goes multiple ways in about three minutes, L-Gante expertly freestyles over it, riding the rhythm in any and all directions. This is thoroughly entertaining and always keeps my interest, and perhaps most importantly sounds smart.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Latin trap via the blown-out, almost industrial distortion from Yeezus, a thread I wouldn’t mind more people picking up (since, uh, the original artist probably isn’t gonna).
[7]

Samson Savill de Jong: The first minute of this creates promises the rest never fulfills. As L-Gante’s menacing voice effortlessly moves over the beats Bizarrap throws underneath him, I thought we were in for a startling display of versatility, with new flows and beats every 20 seconds. Instead it just goes back to the hook and the same beat choices again, and the flow becomes less inventive. 
[5]

Juana Giaimo: Bizarrap’s track of deep synths and two different cumbia beats — one goes harder like reggaeton, the other is lighter and features the typical cumbia güira — is a mess I enjoy. But L-Gante is so monotonous that it takes away all the fun. 
[5]

Tim de Reuse: L-Gante’s monotone growl would get old on its own, I think, but on top of such a foreboding, lanky beat, constantly lagging behind and catching up, it acquires a sense of lumbering menace. The constant forward propulsion is almost enough to sell the cartoonish braggadocio — almost — but I’m not sure any beat could be good enough to uplift the phrase “Picándome el Rick.”
[6]

Alfred Soto: Even if I didn’t understand most of the demotic Spanish, this trap/grind medley mesmerizes thanks to the singer’s insistent monotone, in other circumstances a real irritant. I wouldn’t mind hearing it again, even if it’s not a track I would choose.
[6]

Ian Mathers: This is actually pretty hypnotic, and I can’t decide if L-Gante’s weirdly effective monotone is the main reason it works or the only thing holding the shifting, blaring production back from true greatness. It’s not often I want to hear a remix just to see what other rappers would do with a track, but here I could stand a couple.
[7]

What liquor brand should Troye have namedropped instead? Sound off below…

[Video]
[5.40]Will Adams: “You” is an assemblage of all the ideas that should add up to pop gold, but executed clumsily: empty references (Hennessy for Troye, a Corvette for Tate), familiar melodies (Zedd in particular), awkward attempts at hooks (“yuhhhhh”). A shame, because Regard, through his space-lounge production, comes off far more interesting than previous efforts suggested.
[4]

Vikram Joseph: Regard offers him a marginally beefier production than he’s used to, but otherwise this is Troye Sivan on autopilot — he’s developing an unfortunate tendency to default to breathy cloud-pop which straddles the line between pleasant and anodyne. He’s made it work before, but “You” lacks either the dazed, crumbling melancholy of “Take Yourself Home” or the surging anticipation of “Bloom”. +1 point for the synth motif that comes in after the chorus, -1 because I don’t believe for a moment that Troye drinks Hennessy.
[5]

Alfred Soto: The Timothée Chalamet of gay pop returns with more strategically deployed wanness. When he says the Hennessy’s strong, I don’t believe he could’ve taken a sip without collapsing, which, sure, is the point. He and Tate McRae have no chemistry: whether they sing to each other or isolated in their discrete obsessions, Regard’s beats push them into no meaningful directions.
[4]

Mark Sinker: Early strikes against it: those repeat mention of Hennessy’s are more kneejerk product placement than they’re telling observational detail, plus why say your Corvette car when you just mean your Corvette? Alexa! Tell me about the other kinds of corvette! Yes this was never going to be a small warship or the song would be way more interesting. As it is, it tootles along, never not generic, and you care not one whit about anyone involved, before or after this relationship ended.
[5]

Iain Mew: Two singers providing mirror image approaches to the same material is a fun way of doing multiple guest spots; both sound like marking time until the neon synth solo that’s the song’s highlight.
[6]

Claire Biddles: Like the majority of last year’s In A Dream EP, “You” is minor league Troye Sivan, but there’s fun to be found in its slightness. The lapping movement of the chorus exudes the ostensible easiness that he perfected on Bloom, with a diluted version of that album’s underlying sting of anxiety. The wordless, zippy electronic sections are much sweeter than Tate McRae’s verse, but perhaps that’s personal aversion to the kind of voice that hasn’t yet ironed out its affectations. These one-off releases — alongside his culturally important Architectural Digest video — suggest that Sivan is taking it relatively easy between albums, and “You” is cute enough to justify its existence in this transitional period.
[6]

Ian Mathers: The kind of thing you might hear in the mall (if it’s ever safe here in Ontario to go to one again) and not really notice but find gently pleasant, perhaps find yourself bobbing your head softly to its rhythms while you look at shirts or something. About the most surprising thing is the use of an actual proper noun (Hennessy, even) and yet maybe it’s just absence making my heart grow fonder, but I keep finding myself ok with just one more play.
[7]

Joshua Lu: “You” is fairly boilerplate Spotipop, but it’s elevated by the strengths of each collaborator. Troye Sivan’s voice was made for this kind of moody beat, bringing to mind the best parts of In a Dream. Tate McRae’s voice may not be as prime for this kind of song, but she provides a great counter to Troye’s husky tone, and any change of pace is welcome after the frustratingly beige “You Broke Me First”. And Regard ties it all together with that brooding, echoing backdrop, the kind that evokes both sex and loneliness with every throb of that bassline.
[7]

Nortey Dowuona: Regard leaves a swirling fog of synths grounded by Troye’s sensual yet thinly sketched tenor and the Rock’EmSock’Em drums, chipped synth squiggles and rubber bass, draining out Tate’s sideway smushed croon. He then leaves them warped and blending with mushed synths, spiraling chainsaw synths and vocal chopping that spins but doesn’t come aflame. Meanwhile, “Marvin’s Room” smirks, his terrible job done.
[5]

Juana Giaimo: I love Troye Sivan’s soft youthful tone, but here he sounds anonymous, especially compared to Tate McRae’s louder tone (her voice literally seems to sound louder in the mix). I guess this is nice, but we should expect more than just nice from a song.
[5]

Not a Sia cover…

[Video]
[5.12]

Samson Savill de Jong: Dave just reminding everyone that he can destroy them all if he feels like it. This is solid rather than spectacular, but you also get the sense he’s only using a fragment of his power; it sounds like it was casually tossed off within half an hour but there are still bars here (big fan of “My shooter stayed in touch, it came in clutch cah I don’t do manuals” in particular). He’s capable of far better, but I feel like this song is almost daring you to make him prove it.
[6]

Vikram Joseph: Since we last covered Dave, he’s switched up his sincere, empathetic delivery for something that I presume is meant to sound more ominous. It doesn’t particularly work for him; I’m not sure what the metaphor he’s going for here is, this sounds at times like little more than a particularly baleful chemistry textbook. Clunky delivery (“you get hit… with a stick”) doesn’t help, and callow brags about money and women and a shout-out to renowned homophobe T*son F*ry make “Titanium” extremely hard to warm to.
[3]

Alfred Soto: A week after absorbing Polo G’s American hit “POPSTAR,” this Mercury Award winner takes a look at fame and also shudders. Yet he doesn’t get encrusted in his own snot. The electric piano plays an attractive squirrely line, and Dave gets off a wry verse or two (“I don’t need vibrators”).
[7]

Natasha Genet Avery: Lyrically, Dave returns in top form, but “Titanium” is dulled by its lackluster production and monotonous four-note keyboard riff. 
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: Dave’s a great rapper — that, to me, is unquestionable — but “Titanium” is too simple, and accordingly too dull. It sounds like a freestyle, albeit one with a chorus that opens and closes the track, atop a boring piece of music. He can do, and has done, plenty better than this lazy record.
[4]

Tim de Reuse: Each line, Dave’s flow somersaults over itself and then slams into an over-emphasized brick wall. If you’ve gotta base your entire hook on rhyming three times against the title of the track, I don’t think the word “Titanium” is the best choice of centerpiece.
[3]

Nortey Dowuona: We’re already at the IWW era of Dave? Goddamn, I’m old.
[7]

Iain Mew: Dave’s serious mode got a lot of his plaudits so it’s not surprising to see him return with something stripped-back sounding. The problem is that even with decent rhymes, when the subject isn’t weighty enough for the treatment it just emphasises ponderousness. 
[5]

From Colbert to Pixar to the pop charts…

[Video]
[5.14]

Nortey Dowuona: The soaring piano chords over bass cello strums and bass bubble drums as well as the fuzzy snares and chipped hi-hats make Jon’s keening voice nearly palatable and even exciting — if it didn’t go flat then disappear, with a hobbled clavinet smushed against the left side of the mix, a cut up trumpet popping in and out of existence, and Jon ultimately letting it all pile up and run together.
[5]

Samson Savill de Jong: Corporations have ruined this kind of poppy upbeat near-jazz; all I can hear when I listen to this is an advert, probably for a phone, but some kind of holiday company pretending that going on holiday right now is totally fine and there’s no way it could go wrong is perfectly plausible too. It’s not bad, just generic, and I can’t really get into the groove.
[5]

Frank Falisi: Things keep happening. All the time! Days keep coming and the things keep happening. And the things that happen warp us in increments. We erode. We come off in flecks. I think this process is manageable only if we remember that in order for this long decay to happen, we have to be alive. If we keep being alive, we are also the things that happen. I treasure Batiste’s triangulation of I and need and you because it could reference food or water or rest or contact. Or music. It’s the kind of unspoken contract of music: a song craves ears like a body craves motion. It needs us and the way we move in it, and we need it to keep happening. “I Need You” is a theory of music as joy container, an apparatus that reacts to its abundance or absence. Also, “I Need You” isn’t about anything! It’s just the way we fling and furl. I’m grateful to be able to press play; I’m grateful for the music.
[7]

Alfred Soto: It has the gait and exuberance of a Raphael Saadiq genre exercise but with the coercion ramped up to 10.
[4]

Juana Giaimo: I like the structure of the song — alternating between loud high-pitched vocals and very deep rapping, all the while a playful piano is in charge of keeping everything lively in the background. Still, it could use a little bit more variation each time a section is repeated — maybe it’s even just a matter of changing the beat a little bit —  or adding something that could bring a little bit more emotion.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: “John Legend doing jump blues” is a) not a phrase I ever expected to need to use, and b) not anything I’ve ever wanted, or will want. Especially when done with contemporary production — a click track, really? Congrats on the Oscar, though; the co-written score to Soul is quite lovely. But this ain’t it.
[2]

Ian Mathers: One way pop music can be great is by taking the simple and making it seem operatic, epic, impossible. Another is by making you feel, even if just for three minutes, like life, that incredibly complex, weighty, distressing endeavour we’re all doing our best at, maybe could just be as simple and joyous as a dance.
[7]

Looking back at the ’90s through a cracked rear view…

[Video]
[4.14]

Ian Mathers: I know Hootie, sir, and you are no Hootie. Good day!
[1]

Thomas Inskeep: Shut the fuck up and step away from the Hootie & the Blowfish classic, Posty.
[0]

Frank Falisi: But like, Post Malone covers Hootie and the Blowfish for a virtual concert celebrating the 25th anniversary of Pokémon is an actual Simpsons joke???
[1]

Samson Savill de Jong: This is the best song Post Malone has ever made. Thank you Pokémon (?) for making Post Malone (??) cover Hootie & the Blowfish (???) because even though this song doesn’t sound like any of these things (including a Post Malone song), I also think all three of the elements were necessary to produce it, like some sort of alchemy where you’d never see the ingredients in the final product. My advice is to forget its confusing creation and enjoy the song.
[9]

Alfred Soto: Better whey-voiced ’90s earnestness in the middle of my journey than the lit-like-an-airport space of someone’s idea of ’80s pop.
[5]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: “Only Wanna Be With You” should run on cheap nostalgia, but there’s something in Post Malone’s unpretentious delivery, combined with the synth line approximating a Pokémon center, that elevates the whole track inexplicably into something warm and delightful. I doesn’t hurt that I was born the same year that the first Pokémon game was released, and I’ve played every game since. 
[7]

David Moore: Inexplicable, maybe, but no more inexplicable than anything else. Like in 1994, Hootie and the Blowfish put out Cracked Rear View, which was the first cassette I ever bought and I have no idea why, since I have no memory of knowing anything about them, let alone liking them enough to make it my first album purchase, which you’d think would be a big deal? And then in 2000, the Pokémon franchise, which I was too old for by about two or three years, decides to put out a movie, with an accompanying soundtrack that launches the Norwegian duo M2M, who in 2006 become a formative cobblestone in my path to whatever it is my current critical sensibility is. But why? The midpoint of those two years I guess is when Pokémon first came out, but I remember being aware of it as a sensation in high school. I heard about Pokémon for the first time in 1997, because of the strobe controversy, and clearly it wasn’t that popular yet because I also remember all news accounts awkwardly clarifying that “Pokémon” was a portmanteau for pocket monsters, which is something I literally haven’t thought about since 1997, although it’s right there in the first sentence of the Pokémon Wikipedia so maybe this isn’t that weird to most people? That “Pokemon” is short for “pocket monsters“? Anyway, what I’m saying is, it doesn’t seem that inexplicable, given everything else that is and will be instead of other things that are not and will not be, that Post Malone, who I’ve never really had the time of day for, except for that one song I used to play at the graduations for my alternative high school — and to my knowledge is the only Post Malone song I’ve ever heard in its entirety until now and is certainly the only Post Malone song I have in my iTunes, since, I mean, who even uses iTunes anymore, I feel like if I update the software it will self-destruct, I’m surprised this computer has even survived so long, that must have been four years ago? … Where was I? Oh yeah, damn, he connected a lot of dots on this one, bless his heart. 
[6]

Doja Cat said: “I wanted to make a song about kissing. I just thought it would be cute. That doesn’t happen too often, but just a song that’s solely about kissing.”

[Video]
[6.00]

Dede Akolo: What is it with R&B-inspired pop music lately being so serviceable? At least Alex Landi is hot. 
[6]

Jeffrey Brister: “Aerodynamic” is the only word coming to mind here. No rough edges, no hooks, no jagged bits that might catch on my brain. Just gliding over, leaving no impression, and forgotten by the time it’s gone (I’d gotten this one confused with “Say So” every time I tried to recall it from memory).
[5]

Camille Nibungco: Another sickly saccharine pop banger of a love song churned out by the relentless internet edge-lady Doja Cat. The core melody is reminiscent of Doja’s initial Moo-era, although more matured and with a bigger production budget. Accompanied by the backup vocals and signature timbre of the one and only Solana Rowe — I’m partial to anything SZA-associated — it’s a song I’ll have on repeat for a while.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Conversational pathos is SZA’s strength; Doja Cat’s is conversation. The sexxytalk, while fine and PG-13-rated, pales beside the easeful cadences and the no-fuss rhythm. I smell summer. 
[7]

Natasha Genet Avery: SZA is clearly out of her element in this playful, disco-pop interpolation of “Physical” — how very on-brand of her to hop on a track about French kissing your crush with a line like “fuckin’ with you feel like jail.” Jail! The tonal mismatch of “Kiss Me More” (and, maybe, Doja and SZA’s oeuvres more broadly) is a great case study of the difference between lust and yearning. 
[5]

Juana Giaimo: It seems that in 2021 we need to say that a guitar riff is not a song. The guitar melody is nice in the beginning but finishes being quite tiring when it’s repeated throughout three and a half minutes. None of the two voices can compite with it — when it’s paired with Doja Cat’s loud rap verse it has a strange effect, as if I had forgotten to turn off one of the two songs.
[5]

Andrew Karpan: Incredibly gracious, in retrospect, of Doja’s crew to let Dua Lipa finish up most of her album cycle before handily riding in circles around anything on Future Nostalgia, whose mawkish gasping around the same Chic-esque bass lines now feels largely forgettable next to the work of such consummate professionals. This is how it’s done. 
[9]

Thomas Inskeep: I understand that sounding at times like Nicki Minaj’s bratty younger sister is a plus for plenty of Doja Cat’s fans; that, however, works an opposite kind of anti-magic on me. Combine that delivery with generic-sounding (and Dr. Luke-involved) pop and this is a non-starter, which only gets any kind of spark when SZA pipes up. 
[3]

Samson Savill de Jong: I’m very strongly tempted to give this a [0] purely for Dr. Luke’s involvement — I can only assume he still has a career because he’s sufficiently behind the scenes that you wouldn’t know he was there unless you looked. But although Luke’s involvement does dampen it somewhat, I can’t pretend that I really hate it, even if I won’t listen to it again. This is the kind of Doja Cat I want: someone who’s having a bit of fun and not taking herself too seriously — to the point that SZA, an objectively better singer and artist than Doja, doesn’t work as well on the song as her. SZA is too soulful, too involved; this means something to her, whereas I’m not sure Doja really gives two shits. She’s just having a good time with a cheeky wink and a shrug if she needs to get someone else to be her “kissing” partner, which is the exact kind of energy that really sells this to me. Like I said, the fun is somewhat undercut knowing who one of the people behind this was, but when I forget that, I enjoy it, and might’ve enjoyed it more if he wasn’t there.
[6]