There’s a fine art to crafting songs of summer. They have to have the right balance of calculated escapism and effortless playfulness. The latter quality is, of course, also the former. They have to be light, airy, kind of weightless, yet have something for the listener to grab hold to – an impossibly catchy chorus, an earworm keyboard riff , or a beat that snags you and won’t let go. They’re the sonic equivalent of the Hollywood popcorn flick: you don’t want to think, just be entertained. An example of the balance being horribly off is Justin Timberlake’s cloying “Can’t Stop the Feeling!,” an obvious rip-off of Pharell’s “Happy” that sounds like it was put together by marketing men. It is, of course, a massive hit.
Calvin Harris and Rihanna get the balance right with “This is What You Came For.”
The duo’s last big collaboration, “We Found Love,” was a summer song that dropped in early Fall. What made it really stick, though, was the gravitas between the grooves – Rihanna’s real-life backstory love life, which was artfully tweaked and fudged for the video. That track is, of course, a classic. This time around, there’s no dark subtext to float the groove. It’s a pure, airy electro House groove full of hand claps and insistent synth lines cradling Rihanna’s sexy cooing. In the video, our darling diva smolders in a designer potato sack that probably costs your entire year’s rent, and she looks sexy as ever. Don’t think, just dance.
