Instead of making sanitized, soulless attempts at frat-party anthems, he’s embracing everything great about Top 40 right now: a breezy tropical vibe and the full roster of inventive R&B and hip-hop artists who have put out music in the past six months. For the first time in a long time, he’s making smart choices. Obviously the songs are great - effortless, sun-soaked bangers (there is no other word) that are prime for drinking Lime-A-Ritas on the beach. Ariana Grande, Young Thug, and Pharrell), and now my favorite song ever, “Rollin.” Frank Ocean and Migos), “Heatstroke,” (feat. He’s released three singles in quick succession - “Slide” (feat. They offer us a moment of reckoning and of reinvention. Swift, but rather about working at Safeway.īut breakups, they humble us all.
Swift dropped the bomb: She revealed that she in fact wrote his most recent hit and biggest banger, “This Is What You Came For,” under the pseudonym “Nils Sjoberg.” He went on a regrettable Twitter rant, got real petty, hid in a stairwell, and tried to redeem himself with what seemed to be a breakup song, “My Way,” only to later declare that it wasn’t about T. To recap, in 2016, he broke up with Swift because he was, reportedly, “intimidated by her success.” Then, while she was on her replacement-boo world tour with Tom Hiddleston, T. Right now, someone might attempt to employ a line of defense that’s something like, “Okay, just because he makes highbrow jock jams for men who live in Bonobos doesn’t mean he is himself a douche.” To which I respond with this Instagram, more or less Harris’s Aura reading:Ī post shared by Emil Nava on at 6:16pm PDTĪnd then there was everything associated with Taylor Swift. (In fact, “Colours” was used in that Kia commercial with the terrifying giant driving hamsters.) To his credit, the songs with Rihanna (“We Found Love” and “This Is What You Came For”) are just good enough to keep him from just totally disappearing into the world of overpriced Vegas pool parties. It’s the kind of music you’d hear in a commercial. Harris’s entire catalog consists of music to which meaty jocks can fist-pump (i.e., “Summer” and “Feel So Close”) or songs that make are the aural equivalent of a “Let’s take a popper to the dome and SoulCycle forever” (i.e., “How Deep Is Your Love” - admittedly, a song I enjoy). All of which is to say that there’s always been a sort of aura of douche around Calvin Harris, one that’s extended to his music.
Actually, that baby was Adam Richard Wiles, but Adam Richard Wiles thought, this is no name for a Scottish electro-dance-pop-nu-soul DJ/Producer/ Underwear Model/Singer-ish who will rule the Vegas turntable, and so chose a professional moniker that was somehow even blander than his given name. The second opinion: Axe Body Spray and Ultra Music Festival had a baby and that baby was Calvin Harris. A potato needs chives or bacon or sour cream.
The first is that, as a producer/musician, he’s sort of like a potato - starchy, reliable filler that needs flair to be exciting. Previously I’ve had two opinions of Calvin Harris. Somehow he knew how the haters would feel when they heard it, liked it, asked who it was by, and upon hearing the answer thought: Crap, I like Calvin Harris now.
But it’s also as if Calvin Harris could foresee the emotional roller coaster involved in liking this song - his song. The last line of the song is “I hope it hurts you when you hear my name,” which is probably a dis directed at Taylor Swift.