PinkPantheress – Stateside

Claire completes our set of Fancy That singles…

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[7.80]Claire Davidson: “Stateside” initially seems like a standard PinkPantheress confection, as she snappily recites her state of mind while tracking her crush’s incoming flight over a sparsely bleeping synth. Her palpable anxiety is apparent to anyone paying attention to the lyrics—”I’m freezing outside, I feel my skin tight”—but this degree of unhinged fervor could be excused by the necessarily heightened emotions of pop. Yet once the pre-chorus begins to surge, sending Pink’s voice deeper into the mix with a whirling synth-bass as a foundation, the track’s central irony becomes clear. Pink uses an inspired “American Boy” interpolation to illustrate just how desperate she is to convince herself of her crush interest, even as he sends her mixed signals at best. Regardless of how rash her plan is, she can’t stop herself from going so far as to fly overseas to at least have some chance at seeing him, an idea that becomes more heartbreaking with every attempt Pink musters at making it sound cute. Even her delivery of the line “you could be my American” is interrupted by rushed breathing, as if it were a grounding mantra chanted mid-panic attack. The track’s shuffling rhythm, spliced vocal chatter, and distantly morose synth melody amplify this feeling of being trapped, creating the impression that Pink might as well be talking to her crush through a glass box. Such is the tragedy of unrequited love: her pleading affection is exponentially more gutting for how muffled it is to everyone but her.
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Katherine St. Asaph: PinkPantheress has carved out two niches. The first: plaintive tales of ill-advised entanglements with dudes who are very bad news. Enter The Dare. For a song called “Stateside,” it’s amusing how British all the musical referents are: Estelle obviously, but also Katy B’s various UK dance producers and the Sugababes version of “Freak Like Me.” (OK, that and Daft Punk for a second or two. Still not American.) That said, PinkPantheress’s other niche is sounding like PinkPantheress. I prefer that.
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Nortey Dowuona: The Dare feels like a cat who wants to warp the world in his image, the rest of the musical world left panicking in his wake. (Hell, one of his most popular songs is “I Destroyed Disco.”) After the release of brat, especially after “Guess,” it seemed that was on the verge of happening. Then, after he joined the Fancy That sessions, we are left with: a prominent snare in the drum pattern that is moved to the front of the mix, which is the only contribution he could’ve possibly made. Methinks he ought to be less arrogant.
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Taylor Alatorre: “Stateside” is another track from Fancy That that hits all the obvious beats as well as a few non-obvious ones, each fueled by Pink’s newly etched belief that coyness will get her nowhere. She sounds more than ever like a disembodied vocalist on a rave single who’s been inexplicably granted human form, and she’s going to use that freedom to do things most of us wouldn’t contemplate, like tracking down an overseas missed connection with the precision of an OSINT blogger. “When is the next time I’ll run into you?” is all the argument she needs, flipping the inherent power imbalance of the scenario into something like an equivalent exchange. The air-raid siren that anchors the final explosion of sound is the right balance of serious and silly, a Pavlovian note of vague geopolitical dread that resolves into a winking declaration of Pop Emergency. The indulgence might otherwise scan as desperation, but this is a metaphor for U.S. crossover success, so what did you expect?
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Leah Isobel: The most songlike song on Fancy That, “Stateside” retrofits PinkPantheress’ ascent to popstardom as coy seduction from both sides, premised on misunderstanding and enigma. “Never met a British girl, you say” and “are all boys out here the same?” are mirror images threading sexuality, mystery, pleasure, and disappointment together. If her ringtone chirps over the libidinal synth wubwubs call back to the paradoxical distance-in-closeness that characterized her earlier work — the listener framing everything she’s feeling as just digital noise — the song’s bitcrushed cacophony of voices argues that we are in the same bind as her. No matter where we go, we’re always getting further away from where we want to be. Might as well have fun with it.
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Iain Mew: It’s a good observation that it might be time to provide an alternative to “American Boy”. More than that, PinkPantheress makes something that sounds like the best possible channel-hopping through ’00s pop TV, unexpected turns slickly tied together with a d’n’b base that sounds both of the right time and of right now. My favourite moment is the Junior Senior instrumental quote, effective as shorthand for joy in a way that something longer wouldn’t work as.
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Jel Bugle: Too much talk about who PP is sampling/paying homage to for my liking — plus, I could never stand Basement Jaxx. Anyway, this is a good pop song, with lots of nice little hooks and flourishes.
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Ian Mathers: Since where I write doesn’t put up our year-end stuff until January, I appreciate this reminder that Fancy That is one of the records I need to relisten to a bunch when finalizing my top 20.
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Dave Moore: Hooks begged, borrowed, stolen, thrown together recklessly, the vocal slathered on top like an afterthought, or maybe a clumsy mash-up. Another funny little masterpiece; she can’t keep getting away with it.
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Alfred Soto: How to suppress something this alive?
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