Review Summary: Took a few years to soak up the tears but look at her now.
When Selena Gomez dropped “Lose You To Love Me” in October 2019, it felt like a turning point. Despite having released a decade’s worth of hit singles, the 27 year old artist had yet to release her defining song. Everything was in her favour on paper – 2015’s Revival spawned 3 consecutive top 10 singles, and then in 2017 she caught indie-heads’ attention with the fantastic, Talking Heads-sampling “Bad Liar”. Unfortunately, none of her songs have been ubiquitous enough to land a place in the pop music canon. Plagued by health issues and bogged down by relationship dramas, it felt like a case of her celebrity outweighing her artistry. She faced many accusations of being disinterested in music altogether, and while this is an unfair proclamation, a run of trend-chasing, low-effort singles (see “It Ain’t Me” and “Wolves”) didn’t help dispel the notion.
That’s why “Lose You To Love Me” felt like such an important pivot for the young artist. For the first time I can remember, Selena had a point of view, and people listened more eagerly than ever to what she had to say. A lot of the reason was due to the song’s subject matter, a deeply personal tell-all about her broken relationship with Justin Bieber. It’s easy to feel cynical about her using a high-profile former romance to generate buzz for the song (it did became her first U.S. #1 single), but listening to tortured, vulnerable lyrics like “in two months you replaced us, like it was easy” is relatable to anyone who is reckoning with a lost love – megastar or otherwise.
Companion single “Look At Her Now”, continued the theme of picking up the pieces after experiencing great hurt, and the post-chorus instrumental break combines darkness and dance-ability, suggesting that she’s both recovering and dealing with her demons simultaneously. “Dance Again” then feels like the next step of Selena’s journey, as she sings “all the trauma’s in remission” before a groovy 80’s bass-line kicks in over the chorus. It’s chasing a trend once again, but it proves that some are worth chasing – Dua Lipa and Carly Rae Jepsen are infinitely better benchmarks than Marshmello and Kygo when it comes to creating great pop music in 2020.
Musically, Selena hasn’t quite found her identity yet – “Fun” has some of the indie sensibilities of “Bad Liar”, but with a Shawn Mendes-esque spin on it to make it more palatable for the mainstream. It exemplifies how the production on Rare plays it safe, and some more bombastic instrumentation could help compensate for Selena being one of pop music’s objectively weaker vocalists. She sounds perfectly serviceable on Rare, staying in the middle of her range and employing her signature whispered tones when called for, but she doesn’t have enough power or charisma to rescue the string of generic pop songs that plague the album from track #5 onwards. I’d love to see her collaborate in the future with Bloodshy & Avant, who are producers that have spun gold out of vocalists with comparable ability – in their case, Britney Spears.
It’s unfortunate that “Lose You To Love Me”, inarguably now Selena’s defining song, isn’t followed up with equally impactful material. It felt like a turning point at its release, but now it only feels like a baby step in the right direction. Rare is a marked improvement both lyrically and thematically for Selena Gomez, however an entire album singing about loving herself wears thin when not every track has the soul-bearing lyrics of “Lose You”. However, we know that practicing self love breeds confidence, and hopefully Selena gains the confidence to push her music in a more daring direction. Rare has enough glimmers of greatness to show that she has it in her.
