Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021

Slayyyter – Troubled Paradise

We enjoy a bridge over troubled paradise…


[Video]
[5.86]

Will Adams: Most of Slayyyter’s output has been a love letter to bubblegum, whether channeling Britney (on many an occasion), fluffy Euro-pop or Carly Rae’s nostalgic take on the genre. On “Troubled Paradise,” there’s a clear effort to present herself, both with the upgraded video budget and more contemporary production from John Hill and Jordan Palmer. As is the case with first introductions, there are some missteps. The verses drag, mainly due to the sustained notes that highlight Slayyyter’s thin voice, and Hill and Palmer confuse grandness with aggressive reverb. But what works is enough: the “Into You” bass-throb, Catherine Slater’s ad-libs, and a driving, extended bridge that’s more than welcome in an era where most songs don’t even have one.
[6]

John Seroff: Slater’s XCX-lite audio and FHM video visuals may make for a more mainstream radio-friendly unit shifting package than her hyperpop contemporaries, but it’s hard to sincerely stan for something this essentially and perhaps intentionally disposable. Given her prior single was the unlistenable deep throat anthem “Throatzillaaa,” let’s call this a step in the right direction.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: The past year has destroyed my attention span, but it’s still amazing how every second of listening to this, I forget what happened in the song one second ago.
[3]

Alfred Soto: I hear no trouble and see no paradise: besides that hotstepping sequencer line, this is innocuous, anonymous electro-pop, and in that not charmless.
[6]

Austin Nguyen: Not as troubled as I’d like, but sleek, efficient synthpop nonetheless with its strutting pulse on familiar lyrical pressure points.
[7]

Aaron Bergstrom: Probably less than the sum of its parts, but those parts are “Flesh Without Blood,” “Somebody Loves You,” “Heart to Break,” and maybe “Northern Lights,” so it’s still pretty good.
[6]

Vikram Joseph: This plays like a highlights reel of 2010s electro-pop: the vocals and the gothy melodrama of the lyrics call back to True Romance-era Charli XCX, the heady synth propulsion is peak Carly Rae Jepsen (making me think of “Making The Most Of The Night” in particular), and it exerts a Scandi-pop gravity strong enough that you can almost see the aurora borealis. It briefly threatens to feel faintly ersatz, but its forward motion is relentless, and by the time it reaches the terminal velocity of the middle-eight it’s absolutely a superb song in its own right. If we can call this year the real start of the decade, then “Troubled Paradise” is the perfect bridge from the last.
[8]

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