Get Up Next To You

Jason Derulo “Want to Want Me”

A lot of current pop artists will tell you they are aiming for an ’80s pop sound, but most of the time the result is more of a vague gesture, or grasping for an abstract ’80s-ness that’s kinda warped by not having first-hand experience of living in that era. But this song by Jason Derulo genuinely sounds like something that would’ve been a big hit in the late ‘80s, from the specific attack on the keyboard parts to way you have this soulful but sorta hemmed in R&B vocal at the center of a song with dynamics and structure that reads more rock. A lot of what makes ‘80s pop interesting, exciting, and enduring is that most of it is pulling from a lot of genres at once, and there’s this fascinating collision of different eras of pop songwriting construction, new technologies putting fresh spins on old forms, and an often seamless merging of influences from white and black corners of culture. A lot of this happened for less-than-great social reasons, but the results still feel sorta utopian, especially when you’re looking at the work of Prince, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson. “Want to Want Me” isn’t quite on their level, but it’s a joyful song that really doesn’t quite fit into any genre, but is so direct and well-made that it seems like you’d have to fight hard to resist it.

Buy it from Amazon.