Today’s EDM-pop theme has got us feeling some emotions…

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[4.50]

Will Rivitz: You know what? I was fully prepared to waltz on in, snark blasting at full force as is usually the wont of a Chainsmokers review (anyone remember “#Selfie?”), and I imagine many of my colleagues are doing just this. I’ve now listened to this song about twenty-five times over the course of two days, and I’m absolutely fucking hooked. It’s this perfect mix of wanderlust, fear of growing old, having to deal with the awkwardness of a once-soured love brought harshly back in a hotel bar, and a slew of other things that are all hitting me square in the gut at once. I’m 21 as of a few weeks ago, and I’m not sure whether I’m a kid or a grown-up, and I’m struggling with the fact that I’m really not ready to embrace adulthood just yet, and this song for whatever reason just gets me in a way I simply haven’t found anywhere else. The fact that everything’s wrapped up in an utterly sublime composition of snaps, synth syncopation, and that swaggering, succulent vocoder-ish lead just makes everything better. Sure, pop music is mass-marketed to hit millions of people the same way and all that, but when you’re smack in the middle of those millions you realize its power.
[10]

A.J. Cohn: Like most things, The Chainsmokers’ tracks are generally better, “#Selfie” notwithstanding, when women’s voices are foregrounded.
[3]

Patrick St. Michel: Not to say I miss the lunkheaded stabs at going viral that “#Selfie” chucked on to the world, but at least its overall trash-ness felt fleeting in a post-“Gangnam” world. As annoying as it was, you at least know it would be gone come the summer, bound to be a goofy footnote like “The Fox.” Yet The Chainsmokers’ switch to a sickly sweetness anchored by female vocalists has produced music just as bad and, critically, just more of it. At their best, they sound like a Lorde song run through an Ultra filter, while even their newer party songs sound gratingly cute. “Closer” is the most eye-rolling yet, part “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” with more mattress theft and part automobile negging, all building to a rinky-dink drop. Just throw in a few good cultural references (everyone loves Blink-182 now, better mention them) and you’re set. Give me short-lasting stupidity over slow-burning faux earnestness any day.
[1]

Will Adams: The Chainsmokers’ continued effort to distance themselves from dumb meme fare like “#Selfie” and “Kanye” in favor of sincerity still smacks of cynicism, though the results are much easier on the ears than the alternative. “Closer” almost recaptures the wistful essence of “Roses” that I loved. But the simple couch scene from “Roses,” evocative enough on its own, is hyperextended to cram in as many nostalgic and #college signifiers, which weakens the effect.
[6]

Michelle Myers: I’m not betting on Andrew Taggart’s singing career, but he is a nice foil for Halsey, who tends towards melodrama. 2016 has been a hot year for emotional festival bangers, and “Closer,” with it’s propulsive, infectious chorus, is a worthy effort in this vein.
[8]

Hannah Jocelyn: The double meaning behind “we ain’t never getting older” is actually kind of awesome — in one line both supporting Peter Pan syndrome and acknowledging the consequences of never maturing or learning from mistakes. If the rest of the song didn’t feel like they started with that line and clumsily try to work backwards (firstly, when did Blink-182 replace Radiohead as the go-to name check?), it would be even better.
[5]

Lilly Gray: Halsey and the man-voice from the Chainsmokers are a fatal combination. All the blasé summary crap I can muster is, in fact, perfect for this clumping ping-pong dentist office top 40, perfectly uninspired to the point where it seems the lyrics were culled from one of those word clouds Facebook makes out of top search terms. 
[1]

Alfred Soto: The light electronic touches, like Panko crumbs on breaded chicken, add heft and crunch to tracks this gormless but not depth, and they do nothing for the ridiculous lyrics and 1-900-SINCERE vocals.
[1]

Katie Gill: Horrible slant rhymes they’re trying to play serious AND an obnoxious electronic drop; pop music doesn’t deserve this. Also, I’ve never gotten the cult of Halsey, and this song doesn’t really do anything to change my opinion of her. You could have told me that the female vocalist was a session vocalist and I would believe you entirely.
[2]

Lauren Gilbert: This is dreadful. The Chainsmokers weren’t exactly coming off as musical geniuses, but I just want to tell the girl in this song to run. This doesn’t even work as an anthem of youth that cares more about hooks than music (à la the much underrated “Here’s To Never Growing Up“).  I’m not sure what’s going on with her car — Is it broken down? Or is it too expensive? Is it both? Why? — and Halsey is playing the same MPDG character she does in interviews (the same girl Tove Lo satirizes in in “Cool Girl”). I’ll give it a [2] for a catchy hook, but I’m beginning to resent The Chainsmokers for being everything that’s wrong in pop music.
[2]

Thomas Inskeep: God, downtempo EDM-pop is depressing. Can we call this E(D)M-o?
[3]

Cassy Gress: It’s not a metaphor I’d apply to all duets, but bear with me: imagine Andrew Taggart and Halsey are figure skaters in a pairs competition. The music insistently loops the same pattern; they are enticed to spin throughout. Though the rotation of their spins is well-synchronized, Halsey’s spin is powerful and emphatic, while Andrew’s is tight and clunky. That repetitive musical pattern crops up again and again, so the majority of the long form presentation is comprised of their awkward spinning. When questioned by journalists later about the low-difficulty nature of their performance, they claim it was meant to be “sort of comical.” Andrew gives a shout-out to his crew.
[2]

Crystal Leww: There are not a lot of true duets in EDM. If there are male and female voices on an EDM track, they are usually trading vocal and chorus duties, or someone shows up for the bridge only. The Chainsmokers bros finally show up as vocalists on their own track to truly duet with Feelings Teen Halsey, and the result is an Extremely Sad Extremely Banger tune. I love the competing points of view; I am reminded of Aluna Francis’ (one-sided) take on “I Remember,” and how both of these dance songs feel so oddly specific in the memories that are given meaning. Chainsmokers bro and Halsey have different variations in their verses, but the chorus remains the same for both. I, too, sometimes wonder if the boys I adored think about the same moments as I do.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Let us stage this, the most passionless play: that of mediocre sex with your ex. The Chainsmokers can’t write a song without contempt for girls, so our characters are Sad Rich Doormat — “the spoiled girls of college who have family money but also live this dichotomy of the broke college life,” in their words — and Everybro. They’re both composites, but where Everybro is just like you, SRD is just like all of them. Our setting is, inexplicably, a hotel bar, i.e. the hookup grounds of those who have grown older; but the Chainsmokers evidently don’t know how hotels work because Everybro ditches the room one of them presumably rented to fuck on SRD’s backseat and/or shitty stolen mattress. It’s a bare-bones set, where place names stand in for realism and Blink-182 references stand in for emotional depth. The script is shoddy; taken literally Everybro directs SRD to bite her own shoulder, which suggests the Chainsmokers know neither grammar nor sex. The mood, strangely, is just right; Everybro and SRD ride the deceptively easy groove off into the bedsit. But the morning after, it leaves no impression.
[4]

Brad Shoup: The halting keyboard riff is the sound of machines breaking down mid-mediation. Its near-funk syncopation is all the more human for sounding like failure. Halsey mentions Blink-182 in the song and the Chainsmokers mention Taking Back Sunday on Genius; both bands at this point would imbue “we ain’t never getting older” with the irony I think the guys intended. But coming as it does at the end of a rhymerush, it barely registers as a punchline — not until Halsey starts leaning into it.
[7]

Megan Harrington: Have you ever experienced the incongruence of a dreamy Tumblr aesthetic post and the reality of your own shitty life? How are your sunsets? Just regular? You need more “Closer” in your life. It’s not the only song to fuse heartbreaking pastel sonics with cruddy memories, but it’s certainly the best of this calendar year, and it will make your dirty bedsheets appear romantically rumpled. Halsey is the song’s not-at-all-secret weapon, its open strength — she is the only performer capable of pulling “Closer” off. Though it’s no small feat to transform the drudge into the aesthetic drudge, “Closer” does one better, giving us a song about sexy naked ambition and the unsexy emotional fallout and putting it in Halsey’s hands. She’s one of the most complicated pop stars to emerge from the young Millennial set and she sells the song as an even split between frustrating lust and hope. The way she nails this precarious balance is the reason why your life feels instantly slightly more glamorous just for pressing play. 
[9]