We get used to music being a call back, a reference or a tip of the hat to past musical styles but there is nothing here that suggests anything other than music made both in the here and now and staring confidently into the future. Musically it is the perfect mix of the coolest, understated pop and the most infectious dance grooves, lyrically it is built on the sort of literary underplay that allows live audiences to be singing it back at the artist by the time the second chorus comes around and visually it is emotionally charged and ultimately relatable to todays young pop-picker.
I guess if it leans on any style it weaves Balearic airs and graces through its dance-pop sensibilities, takes anthemic crescendos from that hedonistic scene and manages to temper them with soft and subtle commercial pop moves before blowing the whole thing wide open again with euphoric breaks and clever play-offs.Â
In short Told Me is the future of dance music. We have had all of the dance for dance’s sake sounds, music wrapped up in a vision of how clever and groundbreaking it is, music that revels in technicality, smug in its own self-assurance. Time for a change. And this is the change. It takes the best bits of that clubland scene, loses the self-indulgence, blends it with all the addictive bits of pop music and comes up with something that is the best of both worlds, something that appeals to the hard party crew and the more mainstream pop-pickers alike.
Forget music obsessed with checking itself out in the mirror, this is the real deal. This is where dance music goes next.
