Selena Gomez - Good For You
Maturity. It's a specter that every young pop star must come to terms with; a looming confrontational presence that becomes more pronounced the older a pop star gets. If the pop star does not confront the need to "mature," (or at least give the illusion of maturing) he or she runs the risk of being written off as childish, and being written off as frivolous and an unnecessary trashy presence on the music scene. "Good For You," is Selena Gomez's, a former teen pop star's, most recent single, and an obvious attempt at notifying the public that she is now "mature," and a contender to be a serious pop star to be taken seriously.
Accordingly, her producers and management she took the easy route with marketing the Selena Gomez brand as "mature," meaning, they tried to make her as sexy as possible and hint at sex as much as possible. The theme of the song is that the Selena Gomez brand wants to look good for her
label love interest and the music video comes complete with plenty of shower scenes, and suggestive writhing. The song itself is a slow jam, complete with finger snaps, plenty of negative space, a rap from A$AP Rocky who obviously phoned in to collect a paycheck, and a breathy vocal performance from Selena that feels more constipated and half-asleep than sexy.
The song really doesn't work in any way. The whole thing feels hallow and derivative of many different artists. The lines about diamonds and the theme about needing to please a partner feels very Lana Del Rey. Unlike Lana's music which explores the psyche of women that feel the need to make themselves presentable to their partners; the new Selena Gomez song is stagnant and vapid, not going anywhere besides the shower (but the viewer is invited along!) in it's 3 minute time. The song has decent production. There is no substance to the song, the true mark of maturity, nothing to ensure the listener that Selena now has interesting life experience or a different world view that may set her apart from her younger self (something "The Heart Wants What It Wants" hinted at with it's exploration of feelings about a toxic relationship); instead "Good For You" is a failure that confuses feaux-sexiness with maturity, but at least it approaches looking good
Grade: D-
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