Astrid S – Hurts So Good
Our love is like WHAT? Haynga-na-now? How very dare you.
[Video][Website]
[5.14]
Katie Gill: What on God’s green Earth is that noise after “your love is like?” None of the many lyrics websites I’ve scoured said that it’s an actual word but it sounds so much like an actual word that I refuse to believe it’s not an actual word. And now I’ve listened to this damn song four or so times trying to figure out what that sound is and every time I’ve come to the conclusion that if this is your lead single off your debut EP then wow is that a sign you’re most likely destined to fade into obscurity.
[3]
Cassy Gress: Listening to this is like getting a direct feed into someone else’s life. I’ve never been in an on-again off-again destructive messy relationship like she’s describing, but the way her voice quavers makes it work for me.
[7]
Hannah Jocelyn: Exploring a two-sided dysfunctional relationship is always a fairly intriguing idea, and this song handles that theme clumsily (fire-fighters? yellow lights?) but not terribly, considering the alternative. Additionally, the melodies are stirring, and the production is excellent – dense and punchy but also somewhat restrained, allowing Astrid’s impressive performance to breathe. All that said, “hanging on munuhnuhnuh” is barely enough to hang an entire song on, however gorgeous and well-mixed those backing vocals are, and however dark the subject matter.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: Love as a big, grey chunk of nothing, soundtracked by the coldest and least alive percussion possible for this.
[3]
Brad Shoup: Astrid’s vocal hurts and is hurt: she dips into wordlessness, intones premises, calls after someone. It’s discrete, but you can still recognize the dots. The pitch-scrambled vocals suggest a Major Lazer production for someone Bieber’s wronged.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: Better and more emotionally resonant than the average Ellie G song, though probably less meaningful, if you can imagine that. The acting on the chorus is obvious but I can’t deny I felt it.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Written from the point of view of one of The Weeknd’s victims: similar clacking melancholy, unpersuasive masochism, and hook repeated ad nauseam.
[3]
i just assumed it was supposed to be a wordless outburst of some sort, but on another listen it’s “hangin’ on a, na na” I think. (And because I have a son who loves monkeys, all I can picture now is a monkey hanging from a banana tree, so thanks for that!”
One site thought it was “hanging on out of my mind”, which works really well. But I kept listening for it and I couldn’t hear it.
I didn’t blurb this but if I had I would have said something like “if Susanne Sundfor did *pop*-pop.” Not in the positive sense.
And yet no one recognizes Astrid S.’s obvious template: Tove Lo.
UM THIS IS A STRAIGHT-UP BANGER [9] FROM ME