The Singles Jukebox

Some of us worry, some of us don’t…

[Video]
[4.33]

Alfred Soto: I kept an open mind, but from the beat and use of echo to the affected baby doll vocal “Don’t Worry Bout Me” is so indifferent about its debts to Halsey, Dua Lipa, and the dozens of reconstituted tropi-chopped trop house hits of the last few years that it demands actual resistance.
[0]

Hannah Jocelyn: It’s probably because the #1 song in the country is less than two minutes in its original form, but while three and a half minutes was once the apocryphal length for a pop song, this seems to go on forever. One of the first lines is “Why do you do that to me?” but “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” is too tasteful to be the real-life version of the similarly named ALLY song. This thing is boring, the product of two better songs (“Passionfruit,” “One Kiss”) but without Drake’s endearing tics or Dua Lipa’s ability to elevate even the most generic music. There are some neat details, but they take multiple listens to hear, and this is not worth multiple listens. I just keep thinking about how much the synth at 2:10 reminds me of Countess LuAnn.
[3]

Stephen Eisermann: Zara Larsson tweeted that her label didn’t like this song and lamented the fact that she couldn’t release what she wanted. It seems the label folded and allowed for this to be released as a single, but truth be told: I get it. This feels more like it should be in those copyright free music compilations on YouTube than a single release from a major label. Sometimes, the label knows what they’re saying. 
[3]

Iris Xie: Deep house remains irresistible to me, and the way the chorus kicks in with the little drum loops and slight flutes, with Larsson’s driving vocals, hit several happy points for me with its rollicking but sturdy rhythms. The bridge has a peculiar sound that sounds like a MIDI doorbell filtered through the buzz of a mosquito racquet, which helps break up the flow a bit before it goes into last quarter, which brings all the instrumentals in. “Don’t Worry About me” is more subtle than other pop house songs, but it would fill out the room on a summer day very well, without being overbearing or obtrusive. Unfortunately, it also feels more on the edge of forgettable than catchy, due to the level of evenness and safety with its arrangement, and how the last chorus sounds overly repetitive without any adjustments. The production doesn’t take advantage of the amount of space that was available in the mids, making it all sound a little gray.
[6]

Alex Clifton: It takes a lot these days to make a trop-house track where I’m not over it thirty seconds on, but Zara Larsson’s actually made quite a neat song here. It’s cowritten by Tove Lo and produced by the Struts (the first I would’ve guessed, the second I would not) and it’s good until Larsson steps up her vocals–that’s when “Don’t Worry Bout Me” elevates itself. I think my problem with some dance music ends up being that we don’t know anything about the person behind the AutoTune, but Larsson breaks free of that here and ends up sounding confident as she hits the line “I’m so unfazed.” I didn’t think I’d ever find catharsis in a Zara Larsson song, but it’s 2019; anything can happen.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: A song with two disparate things going on. The track: a glassy, moody, faraway dance beat, kinda like a heavily poppified version of Teresa Winter. The topline: sass and pain delivered with more personality and vocal life than I remembered Zara Larsson generally displaying. The two parts don’t particularly mesh, but they’re both well above average for what they are.
[7]