Yes please!: Dua Lipa, “Physical” – It is going to be a good few months at the gay club. It is going to be a very good few months at the gay club! Dua Lipa stuns on this track, mostly because she has given me something I genuinely want to dance to—a metric I judge most music by these days. If you have not provided something with which I can boogey down to in the gay club, then what’s the fucking point? Thankfully, “Physical” is immediately danceable, with a middle-eight that features my favorite pop staple (HANDCLAPS!). What else is there to say? And with a Normani collaboration in the works, I have the feeling that Dua Lipa will keep me sweaty and drunk for the better part of the year. I’m not complaining! —Joan Summers
Yes? No? I’m on the fence: Demi Lovato, “Anyone” – Like most pop music fans with a soul, I’m rooting for Lovato. Her journey to sobriety has been paved with missteps, as is any journey to sobriety, and good news is great news. “Anyone” was written days before her 2018 overdose, and that’s probably why it is so hard to hear now; it is the sound of a person who’s lost their way, whose desperation has clouded their vision. In that sense, it lacks nuance, which can make the delivery feel a bit ham-fisted—that’s not to say it isn’t a gorgeous vocal performance. —Maria Sherman
Yes? No? I’m on the fence: Demi Lovato, “Anyone” – Like most pop music fans with a soul, I’m rooting for Lovato. Her journey to sobriety has been paved with missteps, as is any journey to sobriety, and good news is great news. “Anyone” was written days before her 2018 overdose, and that’s probably why it is so hard to hear now; it is the sound of a person who’s lost their way, whose desperation has clouded their vision. In that sense, it lacks nuance, which can make the delivery feel a bit ham-fisted—that’s not to say it isn’t a gorgeous vocal performance. —Maria Sherman