mixtape maestro

Australia-based indie multi-talent Gotye‘s transfixing “Somebody That I Used To Know” serves as a reassuring reminder that good, old-fashioned pop (of the non-electro-influenced, Auto-Tuned variety) can still be made and beloved on a massive scale.

Currently sitting at Number One on the Australian singles charts, the song feels carved from a bygone era in song-craft, riding a gorgeously-paced simmer of subdued vintage ’60′s pop sounds to casually unfold a painfully relatable portrait of the distractions of a previous romance’s effect on a current relationship and a genius arc that finds you wanting to kick a character who moments before you felt sorry for.

It’s first two-and-a-half minutes alone are pure magic: Gotye barely-there crooning the sad tale of a previous union not being the slice of perfect heaven he yearned it to be (“Told myself that you were right for me/ But felt so lonely in your company”) against the backing track’s alluringly nervy spy-noir shuffle, only to make a hard left-turn into douche-land with an out-of-nowhere Sting-like wail of a chorus initially suddenly berate the former partner for bruising his ego so bad by completely disappearing into the ether post-break-up and leaving him with only memories (“But you didn’t have to cut me off/ Make out like it never happened/…You didn’t have to stoop so low/ Have your friends collect your records/ And then change your number”).

Once featured guest (and MM fave) Kimbra arrives on the half-way mark to help fill in between the lines in the role of the new ex-girlfriend though, “Somebody That I Used To Know” is elevated to a whole new plateau of awesomeness, her steely cut-down of his behavior in their own relationship providing one of the most fantastic “wait…what?” musical moments in recent memory in it’s jaw-dropping verse-ending reveal (“You said that you could let it go/ And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know!!!”) that brilliantly shifts the target of all his succeeding hook agitation towards her.

All together now: Wait…what?

Why can’t all modern pop be this structurally, and dramatically, riveting?

From Goyte’s upcoming third studio release Making Mirrors, due August 19th.

Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra) by Gotye (iTunes)