mixtape maestro (2.0)

Just when you think pop music has exhausted all of it’s best tricks, that all we’ll have left is a billion regurgitations of “Boom Boom Pow” or some other ridiculous catchphrase, something comes along that smacks you across the foreheard so damn right, you once again begin to hold out hope for what the genre has to offer around the corner.

“New York”, from East London-born singer/ actress Paloma Faith, is one of those “somethings”.

Opening as a stately pop ballad slightly modernized by a subtle hip hop percussive swing, “New York” won’t instantly grab you as anything all that extraordinary. Yeah, Faith’s crisp, soul-tinged voice is nice, and the lyrics’ “cheated-on” sorrow theme bears an appreciable grown-up singer/ songwriter text (“The days were long and the night so cold/ The pages turn and the tale unfolds/ He left me for another lady”), but for nearly a minute you’re left with the ho-hum idea that Paloma is just another in a long line of less-frazzled Winehouse soundalikes (or the “new Lisa Stansfield”).

Then, assisted by a theatrical instrumental soar through the skies, that breath-halting chorus arrives: “Her name was New York, New York/ And she took his heart away from mine”, a clever switcheroo reveal (Whoa! She’s talking about a city!!) that instantly re-positions one’s perspective on everything that came before that moment (“She stood so tall and she never slept/ There was not one moment he could regret…”) and what will arrive afterward (“The newfound friends she introduced you to/ I don’t want to know them/ I just want to be with you”).

Great lyrics. Commanding vocal performance. A rousing, knot-in-throat climax aided by a gospel choir and ascending strings. Yeah, we smell a future standard with this one.

The single officially arrives September 13th; Pre-order Paloma’s debut, Do You Want The Truth or Something Beautiful, dropping Sept. 29th, here.