“Love You, I Don’t” is a surprising single, mainly because the juxtaposition between smooth, modern indie sound and hazy, seventies-infused pop-soul is sublime and entirely unexpected. Unexpected, not because Michael Figueroa doesn’t feel like the man for the task at hand, a deft and delicious meeting of musical minds, eras, and styles, but unexpected that it hasn’t been done before. And if it has, it hasn’t been done this well.
All the more impressive is the fact that he has managed to find such hallowed sonic ground on this, his debut single.
It is not quite an anti-love song, but it is undoubtedly a reflective musing on post-relationship feelings, those confused thoughts that rise unbidden in the days, months, and years that follow when you are trying to forgive or forget, when you just want to move on with your life, but still think about what might have been. And perhaps, what might be again.
Sonically, it is a gorgeous slice of shimmering, nostalgia-tinged indie music, a pop song that is more than the name implies, one that is mature, conflicted, confused, slightly resentful, perhaps optimistic too, and as intricate and ornate as life itself.
One day, all pop music will be this grown up.
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