Perhaps not since Sonny and Cher has a musical duo been so unabashed about showcasing their love for the sake of musical fodder. And though everyone, including Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco, knows how it ended between those two, it hasn’t stopped the album that is I Said I Love You First from being released, complete with a full-on promotional rollout. The most involved piece of that rollout, thus far, being Spotify’s Countdown to I Said I Love You First: Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco in Conversation. Though, in truth, one could argue the most involved aspect of the promotion was Blanco filling a bathtub with queso, spelling out I ‘Heart’ U in tortilla chips and soundtracking it to the first preview snippet from their album, “Scared of Loving You.”
In any case, all this buildup hasn’t been in vain. Because, yes, I Said I Love You First constitutes some of Gomez’s best work (though not necessarily Blanco’s, who has worked on better) in years. Even if not her most original. This includes kicking off the record with an “interlude” a.k.a. audio of Gomez thanking her team/various participants in the making of Wizards of Waverly Place. Indeed, the audio is taken from the speech she gave after the final episode aired in 2012, when Gomez was still nineteen (going on twenty in July of that year). So it is that the listener experiences the gushing emotion, with Gomez emphasizing how many of these people essentially “raised” her as she “grew up away from [her] family.” Something Britney Spears knows all about—though that didn’t spare her from the trauma incurred from said family.
As she ends her speech with, “I really hope I won’t let you down,” the faint backing track starts to lead into the next song. That Wizards of Waverly Place wrapped at the end of her teens was fittingly poetic, and serves as the perfect jumping-off point for the song that follows, “Younger and Hotter Than Me.” For, where once upon a time, Gomez always seemed to be the youngest and “hottest” thing at parties thanks to starting out so early (at ten years old, to be exact), she’s come to find, at the ripe “old” age of thirty-two, that she’s no longer feeling so “fresh” anymore, particularly in a town like Hollywood, where there’s always someone younger and hotter lurking around the corner.
Exposing a new kind of vulnerability, Gomez makes no bones about suffering from the “Miley effect” exhibited on 2023’s “Used to Be Young” (meaning that phenomenon where young people have the audacity to talk about being old). So it is that Gomez frets over the loss of an ex (played by Blanco in the video—hopefully not foreshadowing). A loss that’s made all the more painful by the sobering reality that said ex is dabbling with younger (therefore, automatically hotter, right?) women. Worse still, Gomez is starting to feel the weight of no longer being in her twenties, when girls are deemed to be at the height of their powers, attracting men-wise.
Thus, Gomez laments, “All of the girls at this party/Are younger and hotter than me/I hate what I wore/I hate myself more.” It’s a level of self-loathing that women (of every demographic) are all too familiar with. And one that, in more recent years, has tended to worsen with age as, thanks to the wonders of the internet, women must compare themselves to false standards of beauty forever.
Although Gomez and Blanco start the record on a downbeat note, she picks up the pluckiness on “Call Me When You Break Up” featuring Gracie Abrams (whose single, “I Love You, I’m Sorry,” has a similar tone to a title like I Said I Love You First). While some might have assumed by the title that such a sentiment is directed at a bloke, instead, it’s actually a “bestie” anthem. And one that, presumably, could have been inspired by Taylor Swift (especially if the listener is meant to interpret Abrams as some kind of Easter egg-y allusion). In fact, Gomez remarked during Countdown to I Said I Love You First that many of the songs on the record are friendship-themed.
Not one to let the tempo stay consistent for too long, Gomez and Blanco slow it down again on “Ojos Triste,” with some production and co-writing help from The Marías’ María Zardoya, adapting from Jeanette’s 1981 song, “El Muchacho de Los Ojos Tristes.” And yes, unfortunately, that means enough Spanish-speaking on Gomez’s part to invoke some Emilia Pérez-related PTSD (e.g., “El muchacho de los ojos tristes/Vive solo y necesita amor/Como el aire, necesita verme/Como al sol, lo necesito yo/El muchacho de los ojos tristes [that boy is sad]/Ha encontrado al fin una razón [I wanna hold him]/Para hacer que su mirada ría [and seize the night]/Con mis besos y mi gran amor”). Alas, Gomez didn’t get the message that only the real Selena could carry off intermixing English and Spanish. And yet, with the prominent electric guitar riff, there seems to be at least a slight not to Selena’s husband/band member, Chris Pérez. Or so one can dare to dream.
Obviously spent from all that Spanish-speaking, Gomez switches back to inglés on the mid-tempo “Don’t Wanna Cry” (something Lana Del Rey, in contrast, doesn’t mind doing #sadgirl #prettywhenicry). With a sonic intonation that more than slightly recalls Jennifer Paige’s “Crush,” Gomez paints the picture of herself as a woman in need of some self-preservation as she declares, “I don’t wanna cry now/There’s nothing to say, it’s not gonna change/Maybe I’m the one to blame.” That latter speculation being a reference to the type of “woo-woo shit” Gomez is on in that “someone can only treat you badly if you let them.”
And oh, how Gomez knows something about that, considering her erstwhile on-again, off-again relationship with Justin Bieber. The kind of relationship that the collective consciousness can never seem to forget (sort of like Britney and another Justin, Timberlake). And, evidently, neither can Gomez, for so many of the lyrics sound directly inspired by Bieber. Yet, to that point, Gomez was certain to announce, “Most of this album has nothing to do with what everyone may go to.” Emphasis on the word most. Because there’s no way it’s not Bieber on her mind when she sings, “I should cause a scene for shit you’ve done to me/The saddest part is we both know that I would never leave.”
Unless, of course, the object of her affection made it so insufferable to be with him that she had no choice. Cheating, naturally, is the term that comes to mind. And as the song reaches its denouement, it takes a decidedly disco-fied turn—clearly, Blanco’s contribution to the track as he segues listeners from the seventies to the eighties with “Sunset Blvd,” a synth-y, innuendo-laden ditty that serves as, arguably, Gomez’s most openly maudlin ode to her love for Blanco. Right down to the “old-timey” video that, at one point, finds Blanco cut down to size, as it were, in an aesthetic setup that recalls what Lit (and Pamela Anderson) did for the “Miserable” video.
Getting away from the cringingly saccharine in favor of the cringingly sexual, Gomez and Blanco then bring us “Cowboy.” Of which Gomez noted, “‘Cowboy’ is my version of ‘Good For You,’ but now. I don’t like to share it a lot, but I’m a very sensual person.” Needless to say, she actually has shared it quite a lot, and I Said I Love You First proves no exception, with “Cowboy” fulfilling the proverbial quota on Gomez’s “sensuality” (read: horn dog) expression. Easing her listeners into the content, Gomez addresses her lover (i.e., Blanco) by saying, “You want me to act like one of the bad girls/Put you on your knees.” This is ample thematic preparation for when the beat drops at the fifty-second mark and Gomez urges, “Put your hands on me/Ride it like a cowboy.” And yes, everyone knows what the “it” in that sentence refers to.
But in between the moments of raunch, there’s a bit of sweetness peppered in, primarily with the line, “Let’s pretend we’re underwater/Breathe me in so deep.” And then you realize it’s also a reference to being eaten out. Besides, any attempt at “sweetness” in this song is negated by GloRilla’s unexpected outro, which boasts, “I’ma put that bitch in sports mode and ride it ’til I can’t no more/Have you wishin’ you was my only hope, you feel me?/I ain’t lazin’ like them others bitches, baby, I fucks back/Them bitches ain’t doin’ nothin’ but layin’ on they motherfuckin’ backs/I don’t even think you can handle this.” So it is that Gomez and Blanco set the tone for the sweaty, sweltering track that follows, “Bluest Flame.”
For those who immediately hear a sense of familiarity, it’s not just because Charli XCX co-wrote it (reteaming with Gomez and Blanco again after 2015’s “Same Old Love,” which even features XCX on backing vocals), but also because it sounds exactly like the same beat as “Roll With Me,” from Charli’s 2017 mixtape, Number 1 Angel. And while that rhythm was produced by SOPHIE, Gomez felt obliged to tell Blanco of “Bluest Flame,” “To me, this whole song is Charli.” Perhaps that’s why Gomez (with Blanco in tow) was inclined to premiere the song at a one-night only screening of Spring Breakers at an IMAX theater in New York (for, lest anyone forget, Charli released a song called “Spring Breakers” for Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not). Via a message projected onscreen that urged viewers to “stay after the end credits for a surprise,” not only did “Bluest Flame” play after the screening, but Gomez and Blanco also passed out USB drives (to play up an early 2010s feel, one presumes) with the song on it.
To accommodate the comedown from “Bluest Flame” is “How Does It Feel to Be Forgotten.” Another slow-tempo song that, once again, comes across as a bit of a “fuck you” to Justin Bieber. Particularly in the lyrics, “Look at you, just look at you now/You’re so embarrassing/Go cry when no one’s watchin’/I can’t imagine it/How does it feel to be forgotten (ah), forgotten? (ah-ah)/How does it feel?/I hope one day you heal/How does it feel to be forgotten?/Forgotten.” In a sense, it serves as Gomez’s version of Taylor Swift’s “I Forgot That You Existed,” during which she gloats, “I forgot that you existed/It isn’t love, it isn’t hate/It’s just indifference.” For Gomez, though, it’s more like a ha-ha, you got what you deserved moment when the ex she’s alluding to tries to come back into her life. And since she’s described I Said I Love You First as “an exploration of each other’s past, present and future,” it, again, wouldn’t be out of the question that Bieber crept in as an influence on these lyrics.
As for “Do You Wanna Be Perfect,” the second “interlude” of the album, there’s no need for any speculation whatsoever on who—nay, what—inspired it. And that is none other than: Social Media. Hence, Blanco adopting a cartoonish informercial-y voice as he says, “Hi, do you wanna be perfect? Do you wanna be sexy? Do you wanna live up to completely unrealistic standards set by the current landscape of social media? Oh, wow, do we have the product for you!” Soon after, Gomez interrupts him with the countering statement, “Hang on, hang on. No more of the unrealistic standards of perfect. It’s so boring. Actually, just be exactly who you are. There’s literally no one like you.” In short, she’s pulling the Oscar Wilde adage, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Just as Gomez is now “already taken” by Blanco. A fact she wants to, once more, reiterate in a song ostensibly directed at a “mystery” ex (again, Bieber seems the likely candidate) on “You Said You Were Sorry.” The “you” in that title being the ex she dreamed said that he was sorry. Tragically, the only way he would ever “deign” to do that is in a dream.
Continuing an L.A.-centric motif (established by “Sunset Blvd”), Gomez commences “You Said You Were Sorry” with the image (awash in those Del Rey undertones), “PCH, driving Malibu, baby/Type of love that can make a bitch crazy/He feels me up, yeah, he never gets lazy/I wouldn’t leave him even if you paid me/Don’t think about you/Happy without you/More now than I ever was/But I had a dream/You said you were sorry, said you were sorry/Sorry for everything/That you put on me, that you put on me.” Ultimately she decides it’s “enough” just to dream that the two have forgiven one another for all the pain they caused. Besides, her “new flame, he could melt a damn diamond.” So it’s no sweat off her back anymore (never mind the sweat invoked by the goings-on of “Cowboy”).
The transition into “I Can’t Get Enough” (not to be confused with Depeche Mode’s “I Just Can’t Get Enough”) featuring Tainy and J Balvin continues the pattern of alternating between fast and slow songs. Almost as though to mimic the fraught nature of l’amour—especially when it’s still new. New enough to warrant such declarations as, “I can’t get enough/Yeah, I can’t get enough of your love/Give me some more, all of it.” The music itself, thanks to the presence of J Balvin, imitates the sound of all J Balvin songs, which is probably why it feels reminiscent of “Mi Gente.” Contributing his own verse to the song, it’s a welcome change from hearing Gomez speak Spanish. Indeed, “I Can’t Get Enough” is among the most “fun” offerings of I Said I Love You First. This accented all the more when, to persist in the pattern of the album, “Don’t Take It Personally” slows it down anew.
Echoing the braggadocio of Sabrina Carpenter on “Taste,” “Don’t Take It Personally” feels patently directed at one of Blanco’s exes, maybe Elsie Hewitt, the model now attached to Pete Davidson (for the time being, of course). At least that’s how it comes across when Gomez taunts, “You’re so beautiful, it’s still so hard for me to swallow/I used to get jealous, I would stress eat, drown my sorrows/In a bottle of vodka/And then I remembered/That he doesn’t want ya,” adding, “Don’t waste all your energy/We both know that he loves me.”
By the same token, being loved and loving someone else can be quite horrifying. Which is why “Scared of Loving You,” co-written and co-produced by Finneas O’Connell (ergo, the Billie Eilish aura of the song), is the perfect closing for I Said I Love You First. An album that is named as such because Gomez is the one who said it first and Blanco clearly wanted to troll her a bit for that vulnerability. As for the concept itself, Blanco described his “a-ha moment for the album” as when he was listening to Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s “‘03 Bonnie and Clyde” and realizing how “cool” it would be to do a collaborative record together. Though the thought might have crossed his mind even on the first date (even if each person interprets when their first date actually was differently).
And it was also after the first date that Blanco admitted that he thought to himself, “I’m probably gonna have a baby with this person.” That baby, as it turns out, is I Said I Love You First.
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