Wednesday, July 31st, 2019

Yuna & Little Simz – Pink Youth

Another solid [6] from the Malaysian singer…


[Video]
[6.17]

Kylo Nocom: I was so convinced in 2017 that 99.9% was the Platonic ideal of pop production. These days, I’ve drained myself of the energy to truly enjoy the sidechained electro-R&B Kaytranada and his peers have been shoveling out, but “Pink Youth” manages to touch the remaining bit of my heart that feels love for that initial wave of SoundCloud kids. Even though Yuna’s performance is a little too airy to make an impression, her more comfortable range allows for the delivery of certain lines (“they don’t know what it means to be a giiiiiiiiiiiirl“) to shine brightly. Simz shoves her way onto the beat just fine, but there’s a certain aggression to her flow that begs for something different than its disco-lite accompaniment. Luckily, the track moves forward, undisturbed from this distraction, and the sweet pleasantness continues as well, never straining too close to anything approaching intrusive.
[7]

Will Adams: The tasteful house reminds me of Rhye’s first album, and just like Woman it often teeters on the edge of becoming too pleasant and too inoffensive. Little Simz offers some necessary contrast, enough to knock me out of my trance and to make “Pink Youth” stick better than it should.
[6]

Alfred Soto: When Simz appears, something feels at stake: the finger snaps and electric rhythm strums support a pink youth awakening to its political responsibilities, which in this case is being “ready for love” — as political a statement as I’ve ever heard, especially in 2019.
[6]

Nortey Dowuona: Washed-out synth chords circle the pumping bass as glittering guitar is strung around the sliding drums. Yuna glows among the drums as Sims smoothly wades through, picks up the curve, and hands it off into the air, carried away by Yuna.
[8]

Iris Xie: “Pink Youth” has a lackadaisical attitude toward its construction and can’t decide whether it wants to be grooving or snoozing. Yuna gives a lovely and smooth vocal performance as usual, but she is swallowed up by the horns, beats, and percussion in the track, which overtake her in energy levels but without enough release to allow the track to soar. With Little Simz coming in with her characteristically dense flow, I can see why they became collaborators on this song, because this song is not a far stretch from the mood and intent of “Selfish.” This results in a song that is meant to be chill, soothing, and empowering, like a Steven Universe track, but ends up being soporific due to an overwhelming mass of sound that makes my head feel stuffed with cotton candy afterward. I also can’t shake the feeling that they both sound like older adults to the “Pink Youth” they are addressing in this song, because the song sounds weighed down by a bunch of ideas of what is supposed to be a “cool R&B track.” While I understand that songs like this are probably needed more now than ever as we continue hurtling toward an uncertain future, when I listen to a chill track, I don’t want to compete with its rhythms for breathing room — I just want to space out from it all, just like how I did as a kid.
[5]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Glossy, serviceable production that benefits from the difference in tone and timbre and urgency between the two leads. Nothing more, nothing less.
[5]

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