“Paris” by The Chainsmokers ft. Emily Warren, Monday, June 13, 2022
You shouldn't expect too much from a group whose first single is a monologue about a young woman who is addicted to her phone as she goes out for the evening who vaguely sounds like she could be the daughter of the girl from the opening of "Baby Got Back." But we don't get Sir Mix-A-Lot to break up the monotony of The Chainsmokers' "Selfie." But in a way, it's great that the band started their career with their most picayune song.
GETTING DRUNK ON THE PAST. It's been rather silent at the frat house since the pandemic has put a damper on the party. Sure there have been some party tracks from Gaga and Charlie XCX, but it's been a minute since The Chainsmokers seemed relevant. At one point, though, the handsome duo were the most highly paid DJs in the world. After topping the Billboard Hot 100 with their duet with Halsey, it seemed that "Closer" and the band's string of hits was the musical tide of the late '10s, much to the chagrin of the music critics. The band's full-length record, Memories...Do Not Open, featured the number 6 Hot 100 hit, today's song "Paris" and a duet with Coldplay, the number 3 Hot 100 hit, "Something Just Like This." While the music of The Chainsmokers was immensely popular, critics panned their EPs and albums. One critic, Damien Morris of The Guardian compared the band to Donald Trump saying that the album was "shallow, always betraying its influences, with a third-grade vocabulary and ambition that runs no further than emptying the nearest wallet.”
LET’S SHOW THEM WE ARE BETTER. "Paris" is certainly the basic bitch twin sister of "Closer," and I'm not going to defend it beyond saying that there's something comforting to generic, simple rhymes sung by a handsome boy. It represents a time in my musical life that I was just uninspired. People look at this era of music as the death of talent, and maybe that's true. Listeners' attention spans shortened and all we cared for was multiple hooks. "Paris" and "Closer" seem to be thematically related. It's a millennial struggle that's privileged in such a way that it doesn't realize it's privileged. Mom and dad's money somehow got the singer and who he's sing about to Paris. Money got a "Rover" and a "tattoo on [the] shoulder." As for today's song, what are we, The Lost Generation? Is this 1920s? Are The Chainsmokers tortured novelists/poets/art critics living between squalor and decadence like Hemingway and Fitzgerald? And yet, aren't we all just trying to get away from our parents in whatever situation we get ourselves into? Okay, it's not that deep.
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