Does not do exactly what it says on the tin.
[Video][Website]
[5.00]
Jonathan Bogart: Boy looks at Charli XCX and Lorde. Boy thinks, “hey, I could do that.” Labels give him way more support and a stronger push than they’ve ever given similarly-positioned women.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Rather tepid for this Miguel/Weeknd arrangement. Fuck it — let’s call it “Tepid.”
[4]
Thomas Inskeep: I was skeptical considering his background as a “YouTube star,” but Sivan’s got some chops, and smart taste in collaborators. Producer and co-writer Alex Hope has worked with plenty of other Aussie pop stars, and Sivan himself has a good feel for lyrics. There’s a lot of teenage ache-cum-angst in his vocals (he just turned 20, so he’s allowed), so I believe him when he sings “Never knew lovin’ could hurt this good” over surging electropop beats, which mitigate but never overwhelm the song’s wistfulness.
[7]
Brad Shoup: It could be anyone singing on this; Sivan sighs like that’s a distinguishing characteristic. It’s pretty chill though, like a Peter Bjorn & John comedown track.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: For a while last year, there was a 2-metre advertisement with Sivan’s face on it near one of the entrances to Town Hall station in Sydney. By contrast, his blase affect (possibly ironic given the title) is surprisingly tiny. It’s an affect that works out of a female popstar but just sounds unengaged from a dude. Not that the song gives him much to do with.
[4]
Scott Mildenhall: He sings of being wild, but sounds more like he’s thinking about being wild, how they made him feel wild, and the attendant complications highlighted by the video, which is very hard to extricate from the song when listening. They both form part of a wider concept (still being drip-fed to fans in a 2015 fashion), and it all ties together, right down to the carefree child chorus running through. As a result, those shouts actually become haunting; at the very least melancholic. Sivan doesn’t sound wild any more, he’s remembering being so. If he is wild, it’s only at wild’s loss, and his vocal limitations lend themselves to suggestions of sincerity that make the juxtaposition of him and that youthful joy into something beautifully puncturing.
[8]
Will Adams: Hey, that Years & Years album was pretty good, wasn’t it? Gotta revisit that.
[4]