The Singles Jukebox

Three years later, where are we?

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Will Adams: Heartthrob cut to the core, its synth spritz signifying a sharp turn for the duo which only served to amplify the songs’ outpourings. This doesn’t do it. Maybe it’s just a mixing problem, maybe I made the mistake of expecting the same, but “Boyfriend” lacks the brightness that their overt feels-plumbing requires. As it stands, the emotion in this, a knotted and fresh study of queer relationships, feels locked away behind a song that hits all the right marks as impressively and clinically as an Olympic gymnast.
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Thomas Inskeep: If Carly Rae Jepsen weren’t quite as good.
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Jer Fairall: One album ago, Tegan and Sara crafted a rueful, conflicted, heartbroken kiss-off over an ebullient synth hook on “Goodbye, Goodbye.” One album ago, Tegan and Sara made what is possibly the most eloquent address that has ever been put forth by a queer artist to their queer fanbase with “I’m not their hero, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t brave / I never walked the party line, doesn’t mean that I was never afraid” on the shattering “I’m Not Your Hero.” One album ago, our own Alex Ostroff wrote of “Now I’m All Messed Up”: “The subtle queerness is perfect; this isn’t a song appealing to the universality of emotion or whatever and erasing the lives of its authors, but it also refuses to spell it out for you. “Sick and tired of wondering where / where you’re leaving your makeup” (or a casual “boy” in Frank’s “Thinkin Bout You” or any other matter-of-fact circumstantial evidence of queerness) says so much more and argues for the humanity and dignity of queer folks so much better than 100 Macklemores ever could. I don’t want well-meaning political anthems or pity; I want more people hearing engaging, intelligent, desperate, emotional, angry, frustrated, happy queer voices writing damn good pop songs.” Yes, yes, and yes! With all of that in the rearview, “Boyfriend” sounds bright, hooky, emotive and…well, kind of well-meaning and (self-) pitying. In making literal a recurrent issue in many queer relationships–namely, the emotional damage that results from a closeted partner’s hesitance to publicly acknowledge their partner’s identity–the Quin’s are unquestionably getting at something that many in their audience may want or even need to hear, but without the richness or subtlety that graced such catharses the last time out. It’s not that they have written the easiest song that they could have written as a first single from a new album cycle–such queer specificity is no way to guarantee airplay even in 2016–but that the route they’ve taken towards expresses this sentiment is the least complicated one possible. Pedantic? Maybe, but the bar that they’ve set for themselves is a high one indeed.
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Anthony Easton: Perfect synth pop, and the move from indie folk darlings to dance music goddesses is a complete, though I liked it better when Rae Spoon does it. 
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Katherine St Asaph: In the next few years Tegan and Sara and Carly Rae Jepsen will merge into one synth-cathartic entity, and while it won’t vanquish heartbreak, it’ll at least allow a few more moments of exuberance inside it.
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Alfred Soto: Artists gravitate towards synth pop because depending on the presets the machines convey desire and loneliness: private lusts playing out in communal spaces. Last year I chastised Chvrches for recording wan simulations of what comes naturally Tegan and Sara. “I’m not your secret anymore,” they hurl at the woman who may have come clean about her same sex taste. When the synths lock into the percussion I’m reminded me of how easy this sounds, how precise the execution.
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Claire Biddles: Sure, the words in this make me wince with their familiarity, but the wordless hesitation in the middle of the line, “and trust me like a… like a very best friend” is one of the most heart-wrenching and specifically relatable admissions of defeat I’ve ever heard in pop.
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Juana Giaimo: “Boyfriend” could only be by Tegan and Sara: a band that for years wrote songs in second person in order to avoid pronouns; a band that hid behind indie rock; a band that built a fanbase that genuily trust them and support them. If in Heartthrob they were trying to explore a new territory — and a new crowd — in “Boyfriend” they are now fully confident to dig deeper into this new era. The melody is playful and catchy and so is the wordgame, while the second part of the chorus is in charge of the emotional part. They realized that the pop music scene was much welcoming than the always serious and heterosexual male predominant indie rock. “I don’t want to be your secret anymore,” Sara painfully signs to her lover, but it’s also a clever statement of the band current position in the music scene. 
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Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Tegan and Sara have consistently put out gem after gem, but “Boyfriend” is some next-level shit. We needed an “I Kissed a Girl” anthem from the perspective of the person experimented with; a person that’s already emotionally invested and wants the relationship to come to light — she just wants her to do the right thing. The lyric “You call me up like you want your best friend//You turn me on like you want your boyfriend //But I don’t want to be your secret anymore” is pop canon-worthy, and it’s all wrapped in a track the ’80s are green with envy about. I can almost hear the twins and Greg Kurstin patting themselves on the back. 
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