Unfortunately not a candidate for any awesome go-go remixing…
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[5.60]
Katherine St Asaph: Now here’s something interesting, at least to pop nerds. “Slow Down” was written by Lindy Robbins, who’s been around for fucking ages — she did “Incomplete” by the Backstreet Boys and “Cinderella” by every teen-popper since 2000, among lots — and the one remaining Catarac, because apparently there’s only one now. Like their fellow veterans, they go Max-imalist, cramming it all in — guitar stabs here, synth claps there, hi-hat skitters hither, “Till The World Ends” oh-ohs yonder, a bridge that’s a flimsy placeholder for a future verse by Nicki or whoever, and lots of dubstep. (I’m convinced dubstep breakdowns got trendy because they’re one of the few remaining ways pop could sound bigger.) Every sound at once delivers every metaphor at once: (slow) dancing as sex, music as (slow) sex, on some The-Teenage-Dream tip; but also love at first listen, music as marketing tool (kids, put this record on repeat so we can get that streaming lucre). Which, as a concept, isn’t that dissimilar from “Love You Like a Love Song” — and there’s the problem; Gomez, on record, has yet to show personality beyond “pert tweenager who likes meta-concepts and the suffix-ation.” It isn’t age or Disney provenance — Demi Lovato’s voice bursts, maybe too much, and Miley’s still just being Miley. Gomez, meanwhile, said she’s inspired by Britney via Spring Breakers, which, fine (and also, ha.) Unfortunately, it seems she also meant via “Hold It Against Me,” post-personality: a pop star on paper only. Albeit with the best tunes.
[7]
Anthony Easton: Selena Gomez has the chimerical power of all great pop stars — she makes the most absurd lines sound profoundly erotic. This time, it’s “you know I’m good with mouth to mouth resuscitation.” She also does that thing where she cribs two perfect things and by her power makes them even better, this time late Rihanna and Brit Brit post-“Toxic.” Of course it’s not about Justin Bieber. In its perfect blankness, it is about nothing.
[9]
Alfred Soto: Gomez’s embryonic quality is a nice way of saying she’s a blank, and she doesn’t persuade me that she knows a single from a double entendre, but where in “Till The World Ends” Britney transformed into pure elasticity — a signifier of pure pleasure — Gomez wants to keep her pipes, and Lindy Robbins, who wrote lachrymose scripts like “What’s Left of Me” for Nick Lachey, obliges. Here’s hoping Gomez doesn’t ply Robbins for “serious” material.
[6]
Crystal Leww: Terius Nash was preaching a similar message earlier this year, but his track sounded like it actually meant it. The funny thing about this Selena Gomez track is that while it pleads to “slow down”, it still fits perfectly into the still trendy EDM production style that dominates pop music. (The track is produced by The Cataracs, for goodness’ sake.) My favorite bizarre paradox is that the beat gets pumped up during the hook and stutter of “slow down the song”! It doesn’t matter much though. Selena sounds like she’s having a hell of a time being cheeky.
[7]
Brad Shoup: I’m getting crushed by the fourth wall.
[3]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: The key to the candy-covered core of “Slow Down” lies in one gloriously silly couplet: “rhythm intervention”. Gomez enunciates it like a Gloria Estefan invitation to dance and sings it coyly enough for the goofiness to fly under the radar. Over the course of the song, Gomez sells clunkers like they’re haikus, her performance growing more wide-eyed as the club in her mind grows crowded. The Cataracs soundtrack these winky club-diva escapades with something more Latin-pop than expected (even though, yes, the brostep bass is included), crafting something that Belinda could have easily swiped. However, I sincerely doubt she could have sold “Mr. TSA”, “mouth-to-mouth resuscitation” and — yes! — “rhythm intervention” the way Gomez does. This song is way too much fun.
[8]
Alex Ostroff: Selena manages to sell some ridiculous lines here, but rather than basking in their ridiculousness and counting on charm and gumption to carry the day, she sneaks them past us by continuing to drain her on-record personality. The subtly not-quite-“Toxic” violin line around twenty seconds in is nice, and Selena is still consistently getting the best material of her peers, but I might as well be listening to Victoria Duffield.
[6]
Will Adams: She’s scratching at the fourth wall again, though the proceedings are less interesting. When the dialogue isn’t direct, when it’s fed through the DJ, the impact withers. I wouldn’t mind if more radio house employed these chunky beats, though.
[5]
Jer Fairall: Something of a relief following the garish “Come & Get It”, and “you know I’m good at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation” earns a genuine laugh, but the wholesale nicking of Britney’s “Till The World Ends” already leaves it feeling hopelessly dated in pop terms. As a performer, Gomez remains someone I kind of want to root for, even if only because she remains the most understated of current female pop vocalists, but too often her output is marked by a deficit of personality; hell, even her chuckle at the end of this track fails to register as genuine.
[4]
Mallory O’Donnell: What I like most about this is how everything that happens is so completely unexpected.
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