Rare - Selena Gomez: Review
is an actress and singer whose career in the former propelled her into the latter as a child star. Her first proper studio album as a solo artist came in 2013 and it looked as though a promising music career was on the horizon for her when she released Revival shortly after in 2015 to more critical praise and commercial success. Despite this somewhat promising start it has been a long time since we heard a proper studio record. She has a handful of successful singles and some high profile features under her belt in the time between these records that kept her name in the headlines, and a pair of big singles leading up to the release of Rare re-introduced her as a bonafide star.
Review By Lavender:
I can't say that I've really been a Selena Gomez fan when it comes to her music. With the exception of the excellent Talking Heads sampling Bad Liar, I haven't really enjoyed many of Selena's biggest hits and I remember coming away from her last record Revival pretty mixed. Given that the two singles from the record also had me split I anticipated the record being hit or miss. Despite the fact that I really enjoy a handful of songs on the album ultimately hit or miss is the best way to describe Rare.
The single I really enjoyed is the one that has been a bigger hit Lose You To Love Me, a driving and compelling love ballad that is at points inspiring and at others unstoppably catchy for a pretty good song and single all around. Dance Again is a fittingly titled dance track with a thick bassline that gives the track a tight groove. Her vocals are laced with personality and the track works together like a tightly assembled and instantly infectious tune. People You Know may be my favorite song on the entire record with an absolutely killer hook that has a nuance that so much of the record is missing. The subtle vocal manipulations and stark instrumental are an awesome highlight and the track also features one of Selena's best performances. Kinda Crazy is a Melanie Martinez song from top to bottom but if you're gonna rip off an artist you may as well do a good job of it and this track is also pretty good.
There are a handful of tracks all over the record that aren't necessarily bad listens but don't do much of anything to stand out and sound like background grade pop music. Rare is incredibly forgettable despite being the opener and title track. Let Me Get Me has a solid instrumental but doesn't really do much of anything else and Crowded Room is a pretty average ballad with a simple but effective hook and a decent 6lack feature in its second half. Vulnerable is another pretty good lowkey song that sees Selena getting mellow and personal in her delivery and despite the lyrics not really amounting to much of anything it is still a pretty compelling song. The final highlight is the closing track A Sweeter Place which I like quite a bit and not really because it has a Kid Cudi feature at all. Cudi is fine on the track he delivers a tolerable feature but the big highlights come in the tight, catchy and absolutley fantastic instrumental paired with Selena's immidiate ability to own the track with her vocal performance.
Despite there already being a ton of average tracks on the record there is still room for some big time duds. The lead single Look At Her Now is a rough one with some very cringey humming on the chorus, but that is just part of the greater lack of good songwriting on the track as the terrible post-chorus passage absolutely kills all its momentum. Ring is the weakest song lyrically on an already lyrically weak album and not only does it rip of Camila Cabello badly, it does it in a very mediocre fashion. Fun is a track that I can't believe Selena's label let her release as it pretty much just reminds me as a Selena version of Taylor Swift's Me!. And finally Cut You Off is a super dry, like sandpaper dry pop tune that also didn't need to be included and has absolutely no life to it from start to finish.
Rare has some moments that get me really interested in Selena as both a songwriter and a performer, but unfortunately they are too few and far between for this record to be a positive listening experience when all is said and done. Hopefully we won't have to wait another five years to hear from her again though, because with some quality control she has proven shes capable of making good music here and there. 5/10
