This track represents what I think of as CRJ’s best-case musical scenario: it’s a collaboration with Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtshaid, category-melding producers who are both stunningly good at closing the gap between careful, clever indie and no-saying-no-to-it pop. “All That” floats between mid-’80s Cherelle, early-’90s R&B, and late-’90s bubblegum, and it’s got Carly Rae’s semi-evil catchiness on top of the lush, graceful, spiked translucence that Hynes brought to “Everything Is Embarrassing” and Rechtshaid has brought to everything from “Climax” to HAIM. Ideally, a strong third of her upcoming album would be suffused in this Tween Jessie Ware in a Romantic Labyrinth of Crystals aura. And below, here’s the respectable live version she did to premiere this song on SNL over the weekend.
Press play! What do you know, you’re in an empty roller rink on disco night, and the whole thing’s filling with dry-ice smoke that flashes pastel under the lights, and you’re slow-dancing with yourself and it’s incredibly important. Am I wrong? Do I care? Carly Rae, take me away.
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