Saweetie ft. H.E.R. – Closer
Yet our scores drift farther apart…
[Video][Website]
[5.17]
Ady Thapliyal: I’m so sorry, Doja Cat. I thought your shtick was easy, but Saweetie and H.E.R. prove that it’s anything but.
[1]
Harlan Talib Ockey: Saweetie and H.E.R. are completely bloodless and anonymous here; it’s genuinely easier to pay attention to the product placement in the video than to the song.
[4]
Tobi Tella: Once upon a time I was one of those mythical H.E.R fans, a strong devotee to the kind of artist that seems to only exist for a safe Grammy nod. I’ve cooled but it’s nice to hear her on something unabashedly fun; on the opposite side, Saweetie feels a little muted but her writing is sharper and less scattered. Perfectly pleasant house-cleaning music, less of a banger and more of a headbopper.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Preternaturally disposed to come across as pleasant, H.E.R. turns her sunny-strummy R&B to dance pop designed so that its singers slide on the surface of its corn oil.
[5]
Andrew Karpan: A gorgeous slice of post-Dua Lipa neo-disco unites the California SoundCloud rapper Saweetie with H.E.R., the polite R&B singer who prefers to accumulate Grammy nominations to hits. Each carefully tempers the other’s brand and from a calculated distance — in her bars, Saweetie takes the form of a “classy nympho,” while the once-reclusive Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson promises to show “the freak in me.” The song’s promise of intimacy — which hangs in the title and can be heard echoed in the chorus like a forlorn recollection of a love that will never be felt again — is revealed to be a memory of itself; which is to say a mirage.
[7]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The feathery groove of “Say So” sutured to the best-friends panache of “Kiss Me More” results in a spiffy, effortless fit. On “Closer”, H.E.R. and Saweetie equally pull their weight, the former giving ethereal, dream-like pleasure, and the latter giving perfectly managed mischief. This is the gold summers are made of — and if we don’t have to re-quarantine this summer, I’ll raise this score to a [9].
[8]
Reader average: [5] (5 votes)