This was a mistake.
So, the movie Fifty Shades Darker was just recently released. It is the sequel (which no one asked for) to the hit erotic drama Fifty Shades of Grey, a film about a semi-abusive relationship being treated romantically. In the sequel, the two grow closer as people or something, I don't know, I'll never see it. Besides, I'm more interested in the soundtrack. Last year, two top-3 hits came off of that soundtrack. This year, we have a single top-2 hit: I Don't Wanna Live Forever. It's a collaboration between former One Direction member Zayn Malik (or simply Zayn) and former country singer Taylor Swift. How does it hold up, considering how much of a mixed bag last movie's soundtrack was? Let's figure that out for ourselves.
For now, we'll talk about the sound itself. We can blame Jack Antonoff for the sound on this thing. He's the lead guitarist for Fun, a Grammy Award-winning indie pop-rock act that was briefly popular in 2012 and even more briefly in 2013; the went on hiatus in 2015. Antonoff is the producer of this thing, and one of the three writers (along with Swift and songwriter Sam Dew). When I think about it... boy, this does sound kind of like a Fun song.
As in, it sounds like a song by the band Fun, and not that the song is in any way fun. That "millennial whoop" in the chorus (God I hate that term), the overblown sound, the trying-too-hard-to-sound-meaningful thing that's always been a problem with indie pop/rock... it's got all of that in an electro-R&B package. Fun could pull that off well; these two cannot.
You see, Fun have a very theatrical, over-the-top style that makes their problems not so problematic. Fun are, well, fun. This is not fun in the slightest. It's meant to be sad, it's meant to be sultry. Fun were never good at that. They're all about big emotions, not subtlety or romance. Out of production like this I would probably expect something... more. More of what, I don't know. It just feels very empty.
So yeah, the sound flopped. What about our performers? If you've followed my blog, you probably know that I'm not especially fond of Zayn. His debut album without One Direction was lousy, and the lead single from said album, Pillowtalk, was absolutely abysmal. Here... he's still Zayn. The falsetto is fairly annoying, though I have to admit it's challenging to try and make a falsetto sound good in popular music. As for Taylor Swift... what do you want me to say? It's Taylor Swift. Moving on.
This is a lyrically boring song, that's for sure. Allow me to summarize the entire song in one sentence: Two former lovers want to get back together. That's basically it. You'd think that in a movie in a franchise famous for the kinky sex (which is, admittedly, rather tame), the soundtrack would be more... sexy. Rather, it tries to focus on the part that no one cares about: The romance. It's sort of related to Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey's relationship at the beginning of the movie. Yes, those are horrible names. It's a horrible franchise, so I wouldn't expect any better. But anyway... actually, never mind. It's not worth trying to dissect this any further.
So... yeah. I don't wanna live forever, either. This is a bad song, no doubt about it. It's horribly forgettable, horribly expendable, and horribly unsexy. Go ahead and listen to the song if you want, but if you end up hating it... hey, I warned you.
SCORE: 4/10
For now, we'll talk about the sound itself. We can blame Jack Antonoff for the sound on this thing. He's the lead guitarist for Fun, a Grammy Award-winning indie pop-rock act that was briefly popular in 2012 and even more briefly in 2013; the went on hiatus in 2015. Antonoff is the producer of this thing, and one of the three writers (along with Swift and songwriter Sam Dew). When I think about it... boy, this does sound kind of like a Fun song.
As in, it sounds like a song by the band Fun, and not that the song is in any way fun. That "millennial whoop" in the chorus (God I hate that term), the overblown sound, the trying-too-hard-to-sound-meaningful thing that's always been a problem with indie pop/rock... it's got all of that in an electro-R&B package. Fun could pull that off well; these two cannot.
You see, Fun have a very theatrical, over-the-top style that makes their problems not so problematic. Fun are, well, fun. This is not fun in the slightest. It's meant to be sad, it's meant to be sultry. Fun were never good at that. They're all about big emotions, not subtlety or romance. Out of production like this I would probably expect something... more. More of what, I don't know. It just feels very empty.
So yeah, the sound flopped. What about our performers? If you've followed my blog, you probably know that I'm not especially fond of Zayn. His debut album without One Direction was lousy, and the lead single from said album, Pillowtalk, was absolutely abysmal. Here... he's still Zayn. The falsetto is fairly annoying, though I have to admit it's challenging to try and make a falsetto sound good in popular music. As for Taylor Swift... what do you want me to say? It's Taylor Swift. Moving on.
This is a lyrically boring song, that's for sure. Allow me to summarize the entire song in one sentence: Two former lovers want to get back together. That's basically it. You'd think that in a movie in a franchise famous for the kinky sex (which is, admittedly, rather tame), the soundtrack would be more... sexy. Rather, it tries to focus on the part that no one cares about: The romance. It's sort of related to Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey's relationship at the beginning of the movie. Yes, those are horrible names. It's a horrible franchise, so I wouldn't expect any better. But anyway... actually, never mind. It's not worth trying to dissect this any further.
So... yeah. I don't wanna live forever, either. This is a bad song, no doubt about it. It's horribly forgettable, horribly expendable, and horribly unsexy. Go ahead and listen to the song if you want, but if you end up hating it... hey, I warned you.
SCORE: 4/10
