Twee as fuck…
[Video]
[4.29]
Kylo Nocom: It’s like seeing a fun flick gradually transform into a horror movie and Gus Dapperton’s the jump scare.
[3]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: “Supalonely” is the Tiktok hit that will swallow the earth and destroy all others. It’s got everything. Every vocal tic and ad lib is catchy like a xanthium burr, the kind of hooks that you would build an entire song around a decade ago reduced to passing fancies. In its production style, which sounds all at once polished and completely ramshackle (what’s going on with the autotune?), “Supalonely” gets to have it both ways– competent enough to work as a conventional pop track but goofy enough to take the back route to success. Even the bits that don’t work end up charming– Dapperton’s guest verse, which is so Irish that it sounds Spanish for the first two bars, is absolutely garbage, but against the bubblegum slap bass it’s glorious garbage. Yet “Supalonely” conquers all, in the end, by virtue of being a tightly written and performed song on Benee’s part, a sturdy chassis necessary to hang all the memes on.
[8]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: “Supalonely” was released almost six months ago, but listening to it now in the era of social distancing feels almost a little too on-the-nose. (Case in point: “I’m a sad girl/In this big world/It’s a mad world.”) Nevertheless, this is still a pithy, puerile tune, pleasant for springtime if we’re ever allowed to enjoy it.
[6]
Ian Mathers: The last time all I could muster was “serviceable enough” and this isn’t even that, having tipped firmly over into twee annoyance. Not helped by being inescapable enough that, when I went to go replay the video, the ad before it was… the video for “Supalonely”. Gus Dapperton (you could have called yourself anything!) absolutely does not help. The production itself isn’t too bad (the bass is nice) but every performance and production (notable vocal processing ought to be have an aesthetic and/or thematic point!) choice made around the singing and lyrics irks. It’s so gormless and weightless that it almost plays like making fun of genuine loneliness.
[1]
Hannah Jocelyn: “La-la-la-la-lonely” is the purest distillation of Gen-Z pop yet, right up there with singing “there’s a dead girl in the pool!!” to the tune of “Last Friday Night.” Also: Deadpanning “I’m a lonely bitch” in auto-tune over adult contemporary disco. Gus Dapperton’s Rex Orange Countrified Gnash and placement of normal-phrase-turned-dated-meme “I can’t stress this enough.” There’s a version of this that’s fun, maybe a version that even subverts these tropes, but while it’s not the most pandering song I’ve heard recently, it gets there by accident.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Twee-dee-dee-dee.
[2]
Nina Lea: I first heard this song on TikTok, where it has become a staple backing track for teens filming dance videos. Sonically, it’s a slightly-too-saccharine, VSCO-girl-styled ode to FOMO. At the same time, though, after being in my studio apartment for going on twenty-six days, loneliness never sounded so charming.
[5]