Roofies are bad.
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[3.67]
Kat Stevens: CONCORD, NH – An area woman was overheard last Friday night to be sorely unimpressed with the quality of classified substances available for purchase in her local area. “She was standing right by the DJ booth, so I heard every word”, remarked DJ Dave Camelphat, 46. “I think she said something like ‘it’s practically all baby powder’, or something like that?” A regular provider of repetitive beats to the musical community, Camelphat claimed the woman arrived with friends and immediately bought a soft drink, but then decided after approximately 10 minutes that she would opt for something stronger, as she was not ‘feeling anything’. “I just think she didn’t even give it a chance to kick in. My beats were sick – but her attitude was the unhealthy one here.” When pressed, Camelphat admitted his view may have been coloured as the woman had not paying attention when ‘the drop’ (a lull in the music designed to cause a build up of suspense) arrived. “I mean, what real music fan says ‘fuck it, I’m getting a vodka Red Bull’ – right in the middle of my set? Come on!”
[5]
Rebecca A. Gowns: Quite frankly, this is triggering. The lyrics seem to be celebrating slipping drugs in a girl’s drink without her consent — some commentators suggest it could be MDMA, but it sounds so much like a date rape drug. She can’t tell the difference yet?? What the hell else is that supposed to mean? I found a Dutch interview with Camelphat where he slyly says it’s really about “a girl who’s so drunk that she can’t taste the difference between Pepsi and Coca Cola,” an excuse that’s so stupid it makes me angry. The music matches the lyrical content, loping and trippy, making the whole experience extremely unpleasant. You want music to evoke feelings of nostalgia, not PTSD.
[1]
Ian Mathers: Here’s the thing, my dudes: when I have to look up the full lyrics to your track because I’m not sure whether the refrain (“she sips the coca cola/she can’t tell the difference yet”) refers to someone getting roofied/dosed/whatever or not, and then I’m still not sure either way after looking up those lyrics, it literally does not matter whether it is a “good” song or not because chances are pretty good I am never going to play it again. Yes, it could easily also be about a woman who has put something in her own drink and is waiting for it to take effect (or… whatever, a dozen different meanings I haven’t thought of), but the lyrics don’t clarify it enough for me to feel like I know which is is, and life is finite and I’m going to die with thousands of songs unheard and nearly all of them don’t have that particular problem, so. I would leave this unmarked, but that’s not how we play, so I’ll split the difference between what I think I’d give it otherwise and nothing at all.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: The way this pulses menacingly gives me the awful feeling that the character in this song is the one who wants there to be a difference when she sips the drink, because he’s put something in there, something stronger than a little rum. The detached tone is one I associate with a patient observer, a villain who doesn’t think they’re a villain, and that’s a worry. I mean, if she’d put a little something extra in her own drink, there’d be some frustration, or some excitement, or something, for a narrator to report. It’s a shame, because it’s fairly hypnotic, but I can’t close down the places my mind goes when I hear it.
[3]
Iain Mew: It’s such a pleasure to once again hear patient, dynamic, deep dance music in the charts that it almost overcomes the weak vocals and nothing narrative.
[5]
Will Adams: I love when house gets sinister, but too often “Cola” slips into the wrong side of unsettling. The music is there: a polyrhythmic pulse spanning the crisp beats between an eerie chord progression arching its back and hissing at you. But the lyrics present a distasteful image of a dude alternately sneering and leering at a woman who’d rather just sip her drink in peace. A past version of me would simply advise to pay no mind to the lyrics, but as has been painfully made clear the past few weeks, ignoring problems like these has damaging, long-lasting effects.
[5]