“Call Me When You Break Up,” the album’s Gracie Abrams–featuring second single, is more enticing—brisk and bubbly, with curious lyrics that cascade like falling bombs in Kaboom!. (It is also the only song here on which Julia Michaels—a common denominator in Gomez’s best and most idiosyncratic work—is credited.) The song dips into themes of jealousy and regret, which surface with surprising frequency on an album ostensibly about devotion. On “Younger and Hotter Than Me,” Gomez achingly sizes herself up against a former flame’s new girlfriend. “Don’t Take It Personally” addresses a partner’s ex, kindly—if somewhat condescending—wishing her the best. This is where I Said I Love You First gets most interesting: When Gomez sings not about a romantic partner, but about his romantic partners, past and present, hinting at the messy webs that entangle even the most successful relationships.
As for the relationship in question: For the purposes of this record, it’s mostly sublimated into sex, nowhere more conspicuously than on “Sunset Blvd.” There’s no need to unpack why the juvenile bait-and-switch of “I can’t wait to hold that big, big, hard…heart” is embarrassing. It’s even worse that Gomez’s delivery for the rest of the song is joyless, suggesting immediate retreat from a joke she knew wouldn’t land. Really, there’s minimal evidence of joy anywhere on I Said I Love You First, despite its heart-eyed packaging. But rather than an indication of romantic strife, this subdued quality is a useful reminder of the limits of the authenticity paradigm in pop: An artist’s personal life, their music, and how they present each constitute separate circles of a Venn diagram. Stars can entertain us, they can mirror us, but they can never be known to us, really. And yet: In a way, Gomez has never seemed more relatable—to those of us who have phoned it in at work because we were busy being dumb in love.
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