Dave ft. Tems – Raindance

Catching up with the UK charts with last week’s #1 entry (stay tuned for the current one later this week)…

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[7.22]Claire Davidson: It would be easy for a love song as straightforward as “Raindance” to lapse into either corniness or self-serving bravado, given how much of Dave’s opening verse is reliant on charming a heartbroken girl through a series of tongue-in-cheek puns. Yet not only does Dave manage some genuinely clever lines (“The shower, when you sing in it / Better than Beyoncé / I like the sound of fiancée / You know, it’s got a little ring to it”), but he takes pains to prioritize his partner’s care an comfort, accommodating not just her insecurities but also making space to share his own, detailing the strained familial relationships that led him to believe at a young age that love was never in the cards for him. What really makes me appreciate “Raindance,” though, is its absolutely beautiful hook from Tems, whose effortless sensuality is given ample room to breathe amidst an elegant backdrop of glassy pianos and the song’s gentle, afrobeat-inflected groove. I also have to commend this song for utilizing Tems as an actual duet partner, too, rather than merely employing her as a distant muse on the chorus and little else. If I had one gripe with “Raindance,” though, it’s that it doesn’t quite put Tems on equal footing with Dave: not only is her voice slightly less impactful in the mix, thanks to its contrast with Dave’s imposing baritone, but her opportunities to build chemistry with him aside from the hook are limited to one verse, an imbalance made all the more glaring in the absence of a real bridge to tie these two halves together. Even that abbreviated exchange is more open-hearted than the majority of modern love songs, though, so I have to commend their efforts all the same.
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Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Tems soars; Dave sounds like a guy who intentionally chose “Dave” as his stage name. The ratio is not quite right; leave ODB and Dem Franchize Boyz out of this and let Tems cook.
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Julian Axelrod: Dave and Tems have only gotten more dour in the years since their ebullient debuts, with only the occasional flash of fun. That’s how you get a collab like “Raindance,” which is ostensibly a party song for couples who spend the entire party fighting outside and then post a picture a week later with the caption, “We’ve had our ups and downs, and sometimes you drive me crazy, but through it all I choose you.” In this analogy, interpolating “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” is the musical equivalent of that couple getting a dog.
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Andrew Karpan: If Dave’s best moments on his latest chart-scrapping big one are still his corniest, perhaps that’s perfectly fine and perhaps there’s something moving even about that. Perhaps he’s even “J. Cole, albeit with more to say,” and maybe that’s alright too. His south London pop centrism speaks to the moment and where else could we find working a true singer like Tems, her voice warm and glowing slightly, in a barren desert.
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Alfred Soto: “Maturity” is a ratshit word, but Tems brings such lived-in pathos to her part, especially when she wordlessly croons: she’s like a good older friend for whom you’re happy she’s found love. Oh, yeah, Dave’s here, loquacious and dorky as ever, babbling because words can’t encompass what’s made him stop “chasin’ the narrative.”
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Will Adams: I love how the composition of “Raindance” itself contains a complementary narrative. Dave handles the plot — he spots someone at a party and woos her with various come-ons — while Tems carries the emotional weight in that gorgeous chorus. By the song’s end, a series of post-chorus hooks (the standout being “lean with it, rock with it / your finger, I can put a rock on it”), they’re fully entwined and settled into the lush groove.
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Nortey Dowuona: It is always a joy to hear that Santan can still surprise and excite me as a songwriter. There’s a lightness in his once over laden flow and each line of his sweet talk sounds both sincere and warm, no venting or pressuring, just a light, gentle promise to make her life a friendlier, gentler one not just with his wealth (and Prada) but with his emotional acuity. Oh, and Tems is absolutely incredible.
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Ian Mathers: The production’s steady shuffle and emotive piano chords is effective without being particularly novel, but it doesn’t need to be; both performers come across so well it does just what it needs to do. There’s something lovely and lived in about both of their performances, there’s a sense of history (even injokes, possibly) that they generate, and especially since Tems gets to do more than just the chorus (although she kills that too, of course).
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Edward Okulicz: My first exposure to this was someone I know who uses it for a lot of posts on Instagram, and they just use the chorus, and they use it for posts of all kinds, suggesting they don’t know or care what the song’s about. So I’ve had fragments of this song in my head for a while, and listening to it in full was an interesting experience, because Dave’s verses have a fair bit more emotional depth than I’d been expecting. It’s still mostly a gorgeous rush of a chorus in sound, but the whole thing feels sentimental in a good way as well. Dave’s delivery sounds like he’s never been so besotted, fears he may never be so again, and charisma helps save him from desperation.
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