For Katherine (and many of us), delulu really is the solulu…
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[7.53]
Katherine St Asaph: Reviewing “SuperShy,” I wrote: “this is not what a crush feels like.” This is. The arrangement sounds more like Britney’s Blackout than anything I’ve heard since, in its chilly sequencer, its vocal distortion, and especially in its urgent dispatch from a mental hell of one’s own making. (Amazing/unsurprising that despite/because of the album entering canon via ruthless memeification, no one’s done a real homage. All that came close were club remixes.) Blackout often felt, as Isabel Cole wrote here, like “a blur around the edges of reality that makes it impossible to discern the intentions of others and even ourselves.” So, too, with this. The headspace “Delulu” plumbs is the emotional equivalent of making up a guy. “Clueless” sounds like the wrong word at first — too Cher, as if. But heard literally, it captures the deadly-stakes ambiguity of a crush when you’re alone with only you and it, as well as the asymmetry: the abjection of knowing that the interior of your mind sounds like this, while the interior of theirs might sound fine and also might not; and they might know this about you and also might not. When everything feels like a clue, nothing is one. The situation is Lovecraftian, almost: having your thoughts replaced and your reality fucked by some cosmic horror much stronger than you that no one sees or maybe even knows they’ve summoned; where you always know it’s there but never how close, and the more you acknowledge it or even try not to, the more it pulls you toward escalation and destruction. The song ends quickly — not even 2:30 — and abruptly. Crushes often do.
[9]
Michael Hong: Consider those first thirty or so seconds a contextualization of “delulu” within Lexie Liu’s career. Her oldest tracks, the ones that caught 88rising’s attention, were stylish but anonymous, built around her futuristic aesthetic like trendy clothing for an anonymous model. With 2021’s “ALGTR,” she let some personality cut through her instrumental, rendering the in-vogue synthwave sound jagged; a year later on her promising full-length, she allows personality to come out of her performances: on “DIABLO,” she drags across the verses in Mandarin, howls impassioned screams of desperation in English, and mewls a sultry narration in Spanish. On these first few seconds, “delulu” goes from catwalk synths to heart-palpitating drum ‘n’ bass, listless croon to bratty snipe. But she still takes it further as she waits for a reply — zealous and obsessive, it’s unlike her previous controlled poise. “delulu” is delightful and messy; the various synths with staticky fuzz and turbulent beeps are like a robot processing emotions, yet Liu delivers her most girlish performance, raging fanatical as she waits for a text. “Nerve-wracking, anxiety-inducing, no reply I scream,” she sings, the words mashing together as it all detonates around her. Taken with its outlandish video where she cosplays as various personas, it remains uncompromising of her innovative vision, while still furthering the surprising revelation that beneath it all, Liu is just as human.
[9]
Nortey Dowuona: It’s odd that ’80s pop drums have survived so long. You’d think that Lexie Liu, a Mandopop artist who composed and produced this song with RadioMars, would have other choices from drum sounds even and especially on the chorus drum breakdown which send a flurry of kicks and wet snares with a dribbling synth line at the next side of the second chorus under the high synth riff that is pushed even father into the back. But since they aren’t meant to be too big in the mix, they don’t even hit as hard. Lexie’s voice is so small it slides right through, unable to be crushed.
[8]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: As a Chinese American who used to live in Changsha, I desperately want to love this more than I do. “Delulu” is ambitious, breathlessly paced, and brimming with manic sonic ideas. What’s missing for me is an element of fun; after two minutes, my biggest emotion is relief.
[6]
Taylor Alatorre: There’s this one TikTok-brained co-worker I have who says “delulu” all the time, and I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a slang term that I love and hate in such equal measure: hate because of how it trivializes, infantilizes, romanticizes this that and the other thing; love because it’s just so darn fun to say, or at least to imagine myself saying if I had less shame. It’s for that reason that I wish this song made better use of its title (in some way other than its hilarious single art). The word is processed and iterated beyond easy recognizability, a move that’s intended to mirror the racing thought processes of an overactive mind, but which ends up turning an evocative neologism into a muddled soup of phonemes. As an illustration of the concept of “delulu” it fares better, though, and maybe it’s my fault for going into this expecting a lighthearted meme song instead of a sweetly discordant slice of digital anxiety. In any case, I’d like to thank Liu for convincing me that I should be trying out for the HSK level 4 instead of level 3.
[6]
Hannah Jocelyn: I almost just copied and pasted the lyrics from “Speed Drive” for my blurb, I’m getting sick of motorik new-wave. But!!! This is one of the better new-wave bangers I’ve heard post “Blinding Lights” and “As It Was.” Chopping up the meme word “delulu” is an ingenious hook, and marrying that hook to escalating breakbeats leads to something engaging enough that the song already feels complete at 1:22. I’m happy it keeps going, because I love the synths that suggest Lexie Liu and Zeng Yu definitely heard “Megalovania” at some point (complimentary)
[8]
Alex Clifton: Man, I wish my mental breakdowns sounded this cool.
[7]
Ian Mathers: Songs that make me feel like I’m about to have a panic attack/songs that make me feel better when I feel like I’m about to have a panic attack >>>>>
[10]
Micha Cavaseno: Apparently, there is a market for “One”-era Sky Ferreira delivered at ADULT. tempos for the nervy and neurotic, and of course 88 Rising has scouted and scalped it already. I can imagine this would be super fun for me once upon a time, and it still is in parts. Sadly I just wish it had the slightest bit of fat and girth on it, both in the tone of the bass and maybe just the actual song length.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Outside of that DJ Mustard intro, it’s a compact synthpop ball hitting escape velocity. A lot of songs depict the menace of paranoia, a lot fewer can get at the tail-chasing feeling of obsession. The way Liu’s breakneck vocal falls into some programming and collapses on itself gets pretty close.
[7]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Lexie Liu’s fractalized vocals make “Delulu” feel fuller and faster than it actually is. It’s a potent depiction of spiraling: sometimes, your breakdown is only as overwhelming and unrelentingly maniacal as you let it get.
[7]
Dorian Sinclair: For twenty-two seconds, Lexie Liu lets you think “Delulu” is going to be a sleek, minimal, conventional pop song. Then, you get a full minute of the whole thing chaotically unraveling. It’s a very effective rug pull on its own, but the real magic is in the second half, where she pulls exactly the same trick and it still rules. I’m almost disappointed the song is so short, so we can’t find out if it would work a third time, but perhaps it’s better to be left wanting more.
[7]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Does a lot with a limited set of tricks — mostly this is just an absolutely thumping bassline, a few increasingly unhinged synth lines, a footwork-leaning drum loop, and Lexie Liu herself, distorted and doubled and delusional in two languages. It all moves with the frantic energy of the people in my life who like to call themselves “delulu” — Liu jitters and paces through her lines, channelling Debbie Harry at her archest and most paranoid. It’s a joke and it’s very real, all turning around a genius double-edged use of the word “clueless” so subtly struck that it took me three listens to realize where it had unnerved me.
[9]
Frank Kogan: Perfectly catchy hooks with bouncy beats that announce “playfulness” — but the rhythm feels pushed fast, though that’s by mainstream American pop standards (as opposed to “Eurobeat” not to mention the last 40 years of electronic dance), so the result feels edgy and uneasy, which makes the hooks sound even better.
[8]
Will Adams: Oh, so this is what “Speed Drive” could have been!
[7]