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Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco Made a Loveless Love Album
‘I Said I Love You First’ is more interested in throwing you off the couple’s trail than letting you in.
Gomez salutes the placid softness of Spanish singer Jeanette with a cover of “El Muchacho de los Ojos Tristes,” then exemplifies the exact MOR/post-disco pocket Kacey Musgraves’s Deeper Well refused to with “Don’t Wanna Cry.” After following Charli XCX up the pitch-corrected runs of “Bluest Flame,” she disappears into Ultraviolence-core with “Forgotten.” Three trips to Lana Del Rey’s well of affected, deadened distance and filmic relationship strife — “How Does It Feel To Be Forgotten,” the aesthetically identical “You Said You Were Sorry,” and trap-folk sex jam “Cowboy” — feel like an irate fan of the “Brooklyn Baby” singer taking it upon themselves to craft her next album the way Mario Judah beat Playboi Carti to a Whole Lotta Red. He’s circled the block as a hitmaker in three decades, workshopping Ke$ha and Katy Perry hits as an early Dr. Luke collaborator and later coming into his own as Swiss-knife utility player capable of both the flatulent crassness of Lil Dicky’s “My D!ck Sucks” and the wedding-playlist slickness of Maroon 5’s “Moves Like Jagger.” Elsewhere, the album collects people who co-wrote and/or co-produced Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!,” Ariana Grande’s “Be My Baby,” Cardi B’s “Thru Your Phone,” FKA Twigs’s “Sad Day,” SZA’s “What Do I Do,” and Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s “Unholy” for the most laconic sounds on offer. Gomez is purposefully playing against past strengths; the most insistent snare on the entire album is situated in the J Balvin and Tainy collab “I Can’t Get Enough.” You notice a restraint as Gracie Abrams dances around the “Break-Up” chords with a lilt, gently outpacing her duet partner.
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