LONDON (AP) — A lot can go wrong when a couple teams up for a collaborative album. The myopia of romance could make for unrelatable, navel-gazing music — the kind that should stay between partners instead of being shared with the world. But from the get-go, recently engaged pairSelena Gomez and Benny Blanco have managed to avoid cliché. Their joint release, “I Said I Love You First,” is not the saccharine project many might’ve expected.
(But if you love love, this is still the ideal listen for you. It’s just also so much more than that.)
The album opens with the voice recording of a teary, young Gomez saying goodbye to the cast and crew of the Disney show that made her a household name, “Wizards of Waverly Place,” as cameras click. Slowly, a melancholic piano chimes in the background, bleeding into the first song: “Younger and Hotter Than Me.”
Gomez, in her whisper-sprechgesang (speak singing), instills that too familiar feeling of not fitting in, something she’s vocalized throughout her career. “All of the girls at this party / Are younger and hotter than me,” she laments. “And I hate what I wore / But I hate myself more.”
It’s a delicate single, a vulnerable mirror to another previously released track, the dreamy “Scared of Loving You.” With a heartfelt vocal performance, acoustic guitar and a lullaby-like melody, the cozy track is a gooey reflection of the duo’s love. An album’s worth of these songs would be far too syrupy, but Gomez and Blanco flip the script by playing with different music genres and adding surprising collaborations with other beloved artists.
That’s evidenced in the playful pop-rock single “Call Me When You Break Up” featuring Gracie Abrams and the liquid electro hyperpop “Bluest Flame” co-written by Charli xcx. “BRAT” summer continues.
Elsewhere, Gomez and Blanco lean into an easy, suggestive sensuality, like on “Sunset Blvd.” “Bury me with roses / I know you’re awfully shy / But I can’t wait to hold it, to hold that / Big, Big / Hard heart,” sings a breathy and cheeky Gomez.
It is followed by the slower and sexier “Cowboy,” a lusty, Lana Del Rey-channeling bedroom track that raises the heat of the album. “Put your hands on me / Ride it like a cowboy,” Gomez sings. “Run you out of town, boy / Good Lord, baby, please.”
“I Said I Love You First” extends beyond the famous couple’s relationship and explores various forms of love and life — the sexy, fun, despairing and messy parts of it, even performed in Spanish on “Ojos Tristes” — distilled into an amusing pop album.
