BEST NEW SONGS: BULOW: SWEET LITTLE LIES

bülow explores the dark dreams and desires we tell ourselves to make love work on "Sweet Little Lies."

Love is a funny thing. It's supposed to make us accept our partners as they are. When you love someone, you overlook their flaws and shortcomings. They can even be endearing, all of their little quirks and peculiarities, the things that make them them.

There's a vast chasm between love and fantasy and illusion, however. While love grows stronger in the strong, clear light of direct scrutiny, fantasies tend to wither up and blow away like dust in a Kansas gale. Fantasies require distance to keep the dream alive. When you get closer, the faults and cracks become glaringly obvious, until they become deep fissures we fall into and can never escape.

International pop sensation bülow discusses the origins of "Sweet Little Lies." “’Sweet Little Lies’ is about creating false realities.” says bülow, “When things get real, we find escapes. Sometimes it’s hobbies, and sometimes it’s people. But the degree of it we can’t always control.”

BULOW: SWEET LITTLE LIES

"Sweet Little Lies" is an exploration of the dark side of romance and obsession, about love as painkiller and opiate rather than bonding agent or agent of radical empathy. The destructive power of love is a topic almost as old as speech itself. Just look at the story of Helen of Troy if you have any doubts about the potentially destructive nature of love and obsession.

Given the popular nature of "Sweet Little Lies"' subject matter, it's not entirely unfitting that it sounds like something you've heard before. It's like it's some clone woven from the DNA of several different Pop earworms. Most significantly, "Sweet Little Lies" sounds nearly identical to Dido's "Thank You," which features on Eminem's "Stan," of course, as well. It's sort of a mash-up between the two, with the sweetness and light of Dido's ballad, with the exact same falling chord sequence, and the maniacal obsession of Eminem's story of a psychotic fan.

It's not a recreation nor a throwback, though. There are enough modern touches to appease the modern pop fanatic. Little flickers of trap beats and little touches of ambient electronics place "Sweet Little Lies" firmly in the 21st Century. Despite the timelessness of love's destructive nature, we do obsession and escapism like nobody's business here in 2019. Lord knows we've got enough to escape from.

We Are: The Guard encourage you to put "Sweet Little Lies" on your next jilted love mixtape.

J. Simpson occupies the intersection between criticism, creativity, and academia. Based out of Portland, Or., he is the author of Forestpunk, an online journal/brand studying the traces of horror, supernatural, and the occult through music, fashion and culture. He plays in the dreamfolk band Meta-Pinnacle with his partner Lily H. Valentine, with whom he also co-founded Bitstar Productions, a visual arts collective focused on elevating Pop Culture to High Art.