The Singles Jukebox

“Sad banger,” or just sad?

[Video]
[5.78]

Elisabeth Sanders: Another forgettable song about not being able to forget someone, only vaguely bolstered by Camila Cabello’s fun squeaky-wheel voice and the line “I do therapy/at least twice a week.”
[5]

Michael Hong: Look, Camila Cabello sounds great on this, like she pulls off the heartbroken and wistful atmosphere of the song quite convincingly. And atop the disco beat, the track generally sounds great. But there’s one lyric that sticks out like a sore thumb, where Camila announces “I do therapy at least twice a week,” which just feels shoe-horned into the center of track. While it’s great that artists are exploring the idea of therapy more and more, I just wish the idea was either explored more or integrated better, because as it stands, it just feels like a forced admission.
[6]

Alfred Soto: A convincing performance by Cabello like her duet with His Wanness, Shawn Mendes, isn’t, in part because of inapposite singing choices. The way she stretches vowels and exercises that jaw, she’s practically Yoko in 1971. Her affect blows apart Mark Ronson’s rickety structure.
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: A slightly off-kilter depiction of being knocked completely off-kilter. That tempered commitment to the tone of the story is enough; certainly enough to engender the reading of “you-shaped thoughts” as “U-shaped thoughts” — semi-circular ones, like a magnet with loose poles, looping into nothing. There’s no resolution, just Cabello as a haunted robot, too lost to even find an obvious hook. All of that makes the song.
[7]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Mark Ronson’s kitsch and Camila Cabello’s skill for covering up her lack of technical ability with interesting phrasing are a natural fit together. “Find You Again” is almost a parody of yearning, disco-tinged pop numbers, the way Camila’s melody contorts itself and Ronson’s beat brings in so many shiny noises that you can’t help but find the fun in it. The song peaks early, in a second verse full of contrived lyrical choices that Cabello, singing in a strained, trebly register, manages to sell on pure perversity alone.
[7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Less a song than a chance to give Camila Cabello the most interesting vocal melodies of her career (and with tasteful vocal processing to boot). A shame that this never rises above its idiosyncrasies.
[5]

Joshua Lu: Important: Do not listen to the music video version of the song, where Camila’s vocals are awkwardly pushed to the forefront. Instead, stream the original, where she’s mixed deep into the goopy backdrop, crying out beneath a morass of synths and vocoder. It’s this submersion that adds to the song’s tension and, therefore, its power; diamonds shine brighter in the rough.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: Mark Ronson and Tame Impala do their best impression of Haim, doing their “If I Could Change Your Mind” impression of twinkly ’80s soft-rock synths. Camila Cabello does her best impression of someone who’s felt the basic e*mo*tion of the lyric “this crush is kind of crushing me,” which is more alarming — at what point, in what universe, did Camila Cabello ever have a problem with under-emoting? Maybe there’s a reason for that; at times the timbre and the vocoding sound like the demo was written for Charli XCX. But it’d be disappointingly anonymous from her too.
[5]

Will Adams: Ilsey Juber, who had a hand in the majority of the songs on Late Night Feelings, deserves more credit for helping to shape that album’s aesthetic. Her resigned, turned-inward tone makes for aching, powerful statements, and it works nicely on “Find U Again.” While Camila Cabello’s other two current singles find her playing the role of some exotic siren, this allows her a more authentic and vulnerable space. The vocoding threatens to swallow her whole throughout, but Cabello eventually gets the last word.
[6]