This is the part when I want you to know why you are my clarity so are you gonna stay the night…

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[6.00]

Crystal Leww: The best set I saw last summer at Lollapalooza was not a legendary rap duo or a well-known rock band, but Zedd. Critics of EDM and its massive popularity sneer at its lowest common denominator formulaic nature and the simplicity of the live show. Can’t you see?! You’re all sheep. It’s a shame; it takes real cynicism to dismiss its simplicity as brainlessness rather than oddly beautiful togetherness. Not to mention the overt femininity of its simplicity! Zedd has already given us two anthems that blast off to outer space with women at the helm, and “I Want You to Know” gives us yet another with Selena Gomez saying something as stupid maximalist, as irrational and wide-armed and open-hearted, as “You and me bleed the same light.” When I see those bros shouting a line like this into the night at a Zedd show, I don’t believe they only want to keep it casual. They all secretly want the same thing, too. Line up for your kiss in a single-file line, boys, and call me, Zedd.
[9]

Rebecca A. Gowns: Made for inebriated kids; the lyrics make about as much sense as one, and the production hits all the expected beats and drops to make it easier on ’em. I hope Zedd and Selena’s personal conversations have a bit more substance than this.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: For everyone making xenophobic cracks about Max Martin writing the line “become who I really are,” here’s some home-brewed bullshit: “you and me bleed the same light,” “slipping down a chain reaction,” “I’m yours in fractions” (what, like a Troggle?) Gomez is glazed over. Zedd is blaring, like he’s paid by the decibel. Ryan Tedder is involved.
[1]

Megan Harrington: Bet you’d never guess Ryan Tedder had a hand in this before reading through the production credits. It really takes a 9-iron to my working concept of a producer. Zedd is a producer, so what does he need with Tedder? My guess is that two-second hammer breakdown that pops up a couple times in the instrumental bed, a variation on his beloved handclaps. This is a curious team, including Selena Gomez, whose vocals aren’t at all at the level of a standard Zedd single. Her robotic flatness hasn’t bothered fans too seriously — “I Want You to Know” debuted a top-20 hit. As for what it all signifies, probably nothing.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: Zedd’s sticking with what’s worked, and I can’t blame him — it has made him a global name and pretty much guarantees him top billing at the bulk of the world’s EDM festivals. And it works in that context, as “I Want You To Know” seems tailored for fields of ramped up kids losing it come the drop.
[6]

Alfred Soto: This thumper zips through its running time confident that I’ll know exactly where it’s going, in what condition I’ll arrive, and whether I enjoyed the trip. 
[3]

Will Adams: Zedd’s productions run like clockwork, and like any well-oiled machine, they’re more admirable for their functionality than their repetitiveness. “I Want You to Know” sounds exactly like you’d expect, but there are still opportunities for gorgeous moments. The vocoders on Selena’s voice vary in intensity, but at the beginning of the second verse, when it seems like they’re about to swallow her, they release her, and we hear her voice clearly for the first time. That moment is worth at least an extra point.
[7]

Mo Kim: Zedd continues to stretch the same tricks into an entire discography: you know when those snappy 4/4 snares come in that the background pitches will eventually float upward and the cotton-candy melody from the verses will get pummeled into mush in the chorus. If this is the same dish he’s been offering since “Clarity,” he at least has the good sense to jazz it up with some new seasonings: the production matches Gomez’ sturdiness with hints of distortion, and the last rendition of the chorus approaches genuine menace.
[8]

Luisa Lopez: As much Selena’s song as Zedd’s, this sounds like the best tracks on Stars Dance plugged in and turned up to explosive EDM heaven, those bass drops grunting like fireworks in the dark. She doesn’t have much of a voice, so what she does sounds best in a storm of other sounds, placing the paleness of her presence in contrast with the colors around her. She anchors the whole thing, stretching a wire from beginning to end and holding on amid the chaos, making unfinished thoughts like “you and me bleed the same light” tangible and real. Like all the best meetings between DJ and singer, there are moments when this sounds like a duet. 
[8]

Iain Mew: I hear some of the incredible constructions of synth collisions and I wish that Perfume were singing it instead; Selena sounds a bit too mundane for the fractional love to really take. She could probably do alright as a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu stand-in in return.
[6]

Micha Cavaseno: Young Gomez remains ever the more swaggerless, and Zedd finds the exact midway point between the uneventful (“Break Free”) and the transcendent (“Clarity”, obv.). The song is entirely serviceable, but I’m still waiting for Zedd to give his L.A. Lights Generation stomp to someone who can blow us away.
[5]

Tara Hillegeist: A moment of silence for all the singers who’ll never get handed a line as ouroborotic as “once again, I’m yours in fractions”; a moment of appreciation for Selena Gomez, for finally snagging herself an electropop producer whose sensibilities work for her melodramatic line reads instead of against them. I do mean “melodrama”: Zedd’s synth glissandos and throbs twinkle and warp the ear, a vaselined kaleidoscope lens to the flawless makeup job and hurricane eyes Gomez makes of her voice. I don’t know that any editor could cut a music video using Jupiter Ascending to this as well as they could cut one to Taylor Swift’s “State of Grace”, but I can’t shake the idea that there’s something wrong if they can’t; handed a song so in tune with the spirit of such a film, they should.
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