Rare/ Selena Gomez - pop

By Narendra Kusnur

Album: Rare
Artiste: Selena Gomez
Genre: Pop
Label: Interscope Records
Rating: ****

Four years after her last record Revival, American singer-actress Selena Gomez comes out with her new collection Rare. In the meanwhile, she's suffered from lupus, a neurological disorder, undergone treatment for depression and anxiety, and broken up with her exes Justin Bieber and The Weeknd.

This 14-track collection thus contains a mix of songs on past relationships and tunes that talk of her fightback. It's a very young-audience-friendly set, with a simple pop sound and occasional doses of dance flavour. Her Christina Aguilera singing influence and Bruno Mars composition style are evident on many numbers.

“Baby, you’ve been so distant from me lately, And lately, don’t wanna call you baby,” she sings on the opening title track, before saying somebody else will accept her for being rare. The mood continues on ‘Lose You To Love Me’, which goes, “We’d always go into it blindly, I needed to lose you to love me; The dancing was killing me softly, I needed to hate you to love me”. On ‘People You Know’, she makes digs at exes with the words, “We used to be close, but people can go, from people you know to people you don’t”.

Gomez gets into optimistic mode on ‘Dance Again’, as the lines say it “feels so good to dance again”. She collaborates with rapper Kid Cudi on ‘A Sweeter Place’, where she brims with hope-filled lines like, “We will find our way, we will find the things we seek”.

From the musical viewpoint, ‘Ring’ has a Hollywood musical feel, whereas ‘Let Me Get Me’ has a Latino flavour. ‘Look At Her Now’ has a clubby dance-pop flavour, and ‘Crowded Room’ has a hip-hop stretch by 6LACK, lending a bit of variety.

Though some may find a heard-it-before feeling on some songs, the good thing about Rare is that there are no fillers and the songs flow seamlessly. The emotions are easy to relate to, and this should work well with those in their teens or 20s.