Hello, I’m MusiCommentator, and Selena Gomez just got her first #1 hit, so it looks like I have to talk about it…whoop-dee-frickin’-do.
If you couldn’t tell by that condescending intro, I’m not a very big fan of Selena Gomez. The only other time I talked about her on this blog was my review of her song “Fetish“, and to save you the trouble of reading (unless you want to read it, that is, because I would appreciate that extra view), I rated that song horribly. I still think it is as bad as I thought it was 2 years ago, which is a testament to how awful that song is. However, while that song was not absent from the charts, it was never super popular either. This new song of hers, “Lose You To Love Me“, though, is already much more popular than “Fetish” ever was. Of course, much like with Travis Scott’s “HIGHEST IN THE ROOM“, this is due to it POSSIBLY connecting to a high-profile relationship. But, that does not mean I should judge this song before I go into it. Who knows, maybe Selena will leave her old, generic ways and make a song that I actually enjoy.
“You promised the world and I fell for it”
So we start off talking about a relationship. Specifically, a broken up relationship, and one that has been broken mostly due to the other partner’s actions. While this partner remains unnamed, most think it is Justin Bieber, which is why this song has already gained so much popularity.
“I put you first and you adored it
Set fires to my forest
And you let it burn”
I…uh…this has a lot of sexual implications I don’t want to get into, so we’re going to move on.
“Sang off-key in my chorus
‘Cause it wasn’t yours”
Did Selena Gomez just rip this line from a 5th-grader’s journal or something? This sounds like a lyric a 14-year old would think it super deep (I guess most of Selena’s fans are probably 14 and under, though, so she made a good writing choice here).
“I saw the signs and I ignored it
Rose-colored glasses all distorted”
Okay, this is actually kind of a cool line. Selena takes the common metaphor of “rose-tinted glasses” and changes it in a cool way I don’t hear often, so I’ll give her some props for this lyric.
“You got off on the hurtin’
When it wasn’t yours, yeah”
Again, PLEASE STOP WITH THE POSSIBLE INNUENDOS!
“We’d always go into it blindly
I needed to lose you to find me
This dancing was killing me softly
I needed to hate you to love me, yea”
The entire sentiment that comes behind the lines “I needed to hate you to find me” and “I needed to lose you to love me” that this song offers is something I can get behind, because a lot of the times in bad relationships, getting rid of a toxic partner is the best thing someone can do to love themselves. However, having the line “I need to hate you to love me” multiple times in this song is very off-putting. I feel like I should not have to explain this to a songwriter who is significantly older than me, but loving yourself should never, EVER come at the expense of hating someone else. Hate does not foster love. If you loving yourself is only fueled by the fact you have hate for someone else, then you do not truly love yourself. Loving yourself should come from YOU, not someone else. I would not be so critical of this line either if Selena’s core fanbase was not pre-teens and under, because this is definitely an awful thing to be telling impressionable teens. If any fans of Selena are reading this, do NOT think that loving yourself is the by-product of hating someone else. That will just make you miserable.
“To love, love, yeah
To love, love, yeah
To love, yeah
I needed to lose you to love me, yeah
To love, love, yeah
To love, love, yeah
To love, yeah
I needed to lose you to love me”
And here we see the incredibly underwritten chorus of this song. Not only is there not much substance to this chorus at all, but the melodies and vocal layering on every “to love, love” is really annoying. She probably should have thought of a better hook.
“In two months, you replaced us
Like it was easy
Made me think I deserved it
In the thick of healing, yeah”
This is another good set of lines. I like these lyrics specifically because it shows the amount of time this heartbreak took to fade, and thus to amount of time it took to love herself. Many of these self-love/empowerment songs just say “you’re great, you’re awesome, you should be happy all the time about yourself!”, which would be nice if that was actually possible. People who have issues with self-confidence and self-love cannot just be told this and automatically feel better about themselves. It’s a process, and I like how Selena showed that here. She showed how her process of loving herself took months, and there were ups and downs that came along with it. It was not just “oh, I’m doing good with self-love, so I guess I love myself now”. The road to recovery is a rocky process, and I like how Selena showcases that in this song.
Overall, this is one of Selena’s better songs. However, that does not make it a good song. As shown by my lyrical analysis, there are a few lines in here that I think are very smart and introspective, which are things I do not see too often in Selena’s music. However, there are not too many other good qualities to compliment. Selena’s vocals and the instrumentals on this song are okay, but they are not so spectacular or unique that I could say anything good about them. They are kind of generic, especially for a ballad like this. Also, not all of the lyrics were great. A few were good, but many ranged from average to uncomfortably sexual. So, for all of this, I’m going to give this song a 2.5 out of 5. Do you agree?
Thank you for reading my “Lose You To Love Me” song review. If you liked this review, make sure to follow my website, Twitter, and Instagram, like this post, and be sure to check in to read my future reviews. Plus, check out my new Instagram account @one_sentence_album_reviews if you want to see more reviews geared towards albums. Also, if you have something you want to see me review, tell me in the comments. Until then, keep on listening to good music! I know I will.
MusiCommentator 