Nothing to rouse us for Amnesty Week like Annie…
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[6.72]
Josh Winters: Deep in the electroasis of “Cara Mia” lives a serenity that can only be acquired after lying in a zero-gravity recliner for an hour. There’s a sleepiness in Annie’s delivery that gives Richard X’s production its lackadaisical feel, her weightless whispers tinging the air with the narcotic sweetness of strawberry-scented perfume. It’s my kind of digital getaway destination, and the water has never looked more inviting.
[9]
Juana Giaimo: At the beginning of a summer which doesn’t promise exciting times, a song like “Cara Mia” lifts me up from my own self. The light beat and smooth sweet voice take me away to a place where there are no reasons to worry and where everyone wants to dance with me. And from now on, I’ll answer the phone hoping someone will say to me “There won’t be summer alone”.
[8]
Megan Harrington: Annie’s is a world that’s almost devoid of any natural element. The ground isn’t dirt or even cement, it’s a slick piece of hot pink polyvinyl. The outdoors are the indoors in different colors and scents; the jungle is a humidifier and a fake plant. The artificial supplants the real, it’s more real than the real because it’s constructed. “Cara Mia” doesn’t abandon this world, but carbonation deteriorates its solidity. Tiny bubbles of air permeate throughout, a rush of hope that feels almost like a breeze.
[9]
Madeleine Lee: The weather isn’t even that bad here by northern hemisphere pre-winter standards, but “Cara Mia” still makes me long for somewhere as warm and breezy as the synths that waft through it. Endless Vacation indeed — it’s a fantasy.
[8]
Alfred Soto: Souffle-light, reliant on a calypso preset. It wants to be tropical house, and maybe it is. Annie’s there/not there quality is a matter of taste. Sarah Cracknell would’ve been better, no?
[6]
Scott Mildenhall: It’s impressive non-commitment from Annie and Richard X to extend the image of them as pop flaneurs to the point of making music as lightweight as this. The only thought that lingers after listening is that it sounds at one point like she’s supplementing her skim of Italian with a wish for her beloved to have a happy birthday in Welsh. (She isn’t.) If it was a lab experiment to make the most momentarily enjoyable yet immediately forgettable song possible then congratulations, but that seems a small victory.
[6]
Jonathan Bradley: Annie’s coo vanishes deeper into house. “Come and dance with me,” she imparts: an imperative without agency. The soft gestures aren’t disappointing; the corresponding lowered expectations are.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: Decent, but too-bloodless, Italo-ish-disco-pop. There’s no heat here whatsoever, no frisson, and this desperately needs it.
[4]
Anthony Easton: I missed Annie’s voice, but even with the twinkling coda, has it ever been this anonymous or this leaden?
[4]
Josh Langhoff: A purportedly uptempo song that somehow feels sleepy. Maybe I am just sleepy.
[3]
Brad Shoup: When you have a vocalist as no-bullshit as Annie, it doesn’t surprise when she prefers to hang with the melodic throughline. She holds the title as lightly as possible: like most of the song, it’s spoken by another, filtered through Annie’s replay function. There’s no transport here, and no release: the piano pumps like barely-tolerated pistons. The journey, such as it is, is mental.
[7]
Will Adams: The A&R EP succeeded not just because Annie and Richard X are a fool-proof combo but because the songs had urgency that contrasted nicely with the revivalist electropop. Compare with this year’s Endless Vacation, where the effort seems a bit perfunctory. “Cara Mia” isn’t bad, far from it; there’s just not much beyond sounding like the aural equivalent of lite daiquiri mix.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: Every moment slips away eventually, but Annie luxuriates in the ones central to “Cara Mia.” Her words come out in half speed and the music rolls out like calm waves, all of it playing out like an effort to hold on to those little instances, a first dance or whisper. There’s no tension or worry, but just an embrace of the now.
[8]
Katherine St Asaph: “Anthonio” with half the posh colonialism but also half the tension, or maybe “Back Together” but twice as fizzy. As blissful as that first forever-seeming moment when infatuation is looking perhaps reciprocated, maybe — and exactly as silly from the outside.
[7]
Mo Kim: “Cara Mia” might be translated from Italian to “my darling,” and this sweetly-subdued track from Annie endears itself, from its refusal of contemporary sonic loudness (preferring instead the slow, layered build of different instrumental elements) to the way Annie’s voice wafts through the neon scenery like a mist.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: Is it just the use of a superficial Italian phrase that reminds me of ABBA? The sophisticated languor is more Cardigans, or even Saint Etienne, but then they too have their origins in ABBA.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: Over and over again Annie sings “I love it when you say…” and it finally hit me that it’s got to be a call out to the “I know you wanna say” that bridges the second verse into the chorus of Corona’s “Rhythm of the Night.” It’s just that kind of record.
[8]
Cédric Le Merrer: Adulthood for me has this far meant, among other things, that the hardest, saddest, most desperate moments of my life are also moments when i’m super tired. Depression used to mean sleping late and skipping class. Now it’s more often being overworked and stressed. So I’ve found the songs that help me are no longer the same. They used to be laments by overemotive rockers. Now I’d much rather listen to a pop star telling me that Somebody Loves Me. Cara Mia, with its soothing house backing, works just as fine, albeit in a more self-reflective way. The song’s bittersweet allure hinges on this murmured “I love it when you say.” The following chorus then turns into either a lovely memory or — my interpretation — the wishful song of a lonely heart, picking oneself up with the help of an imaginary lover. It’s pretty narcissistic, as is the act of listening on repeat to a pop song and deciding it’s about you. But sometimes it’s just what you need.
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