By popular demand, more Demi Lovato on RPS
You asked for it...
"I just stumbled upon your jam-packed review page about Demi Lovato," began a letter that arrived in the RPS treehouse this morning. We were puzzled. Do we have any page about Demi Lovato, let alone a jam-packed review page? We (by which I mean I) have mentioned the singer a few times but... oh! I see.
When the letter asked if we'd write about Demi for their own site, Alec dismissed it as spam trying to wangle free work and advertising. Nope. I get it. This is sarky fan mail, complaining that we haven't posted enough Demi Lovato on RPS. Well, if you, the fans, demand it...
First, a brief introduction for those who are always a little too keen to declare that they only listen to Dragonforce, Imagine Dragons, Mogwai, or some other guitar band named after fictional creatures. 26 years old, Demi Lovato is an American pop artist whose fame grew from the fertile soils of the Disney Channel. This puts her in the fine company of such Disney Channel alumni as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Christina Aguilera: high in the charts with some stone cold bangers.
As a certified old person, I didn't learn of Demi until her fourth album, in 2013. The lead single, Heart Attack, became a fixture of playlists me and my pals blasted in parks across the summer while drinking and playing cricket. Happy days. Her high note at the end, damn. Her inky hands in the video are great and all.
"You can write anything about the Albums you love," our fan letter continued, "from deep-dives on the technical prowess of an Album, its cultural significance or simply nostalgic stories that're tangentially related to a particular moment in your life, giving our community a more organic & personal experience that we hope will be completely different from traditional 'Reviews.'"
Well, reader, I can't promise RPS patented Wot I Thinks of albums just yet, but we'll bear this in mind. I'm so glad you get what we're about.
2015's Cool For The Summer was also, obvs, a good'un for shouting along to in the dark after rolling down a hill. The line "Don't be scared 'cause I'm your body type" at first had me puzzled, thinking it was some sort of "Yeah no I know we look similar but we're not clones or twins or lookalikes or anything and I don't want to wear your clothes so it wouldn't be weird don't worry it's totally cool if we pash."
A friend nudged me to think bigger-picture, suggesting the song might be celebrating kissing any lady rather than trying to defuse one specific lady's concerns that Demi is her alternate-universe self thirsting for a transdimensional snog. That probably makes more sense.
Aw man, have I really fallen out of touch with Demi? The last new single of hers I knew inside-out was Cool For The Summer's follow-up, Confident. Which apparently was four years ago? How. I suppose 2015 was the year I moved several hundred miles away from London. My life shifted from climbing over park fences after the gates locked to climbing over stiles to reach lonely lochs. Different, but not bad.
Confident is a good tune, bit of a belter even if this sort of rousing anthem never quite connects with me. Also, you can argue that Confident's video makes Demi part of the Fastnfuriverse.
My apologies for the short and unfocused post, dear readers, but I hope this at least briefly satisfies your craving for more Demi Lovato on RPS. Let's call this a new beginning.
"I appreciate your reading this far & hope to hear from you soon!" the letter concluded. Oh, it was my pleasure to hear from you. Write again soon!
Everyone please keep sending us letters about Demi, and of course we'd love to receive some about Britney (please pitch Brendy a column about Britney's Instagram), Justin, and all the rest too. Maybe one day we'll even find time to fully celebrate the modern-day princess of pop, Carly Rae Jepsen god damn.