Track Review (4/17/2021)

What’s better than dancing your sad feelings away? Jessie Ware creates the perfect pop song for that. In her first single off of her record, What’s Your Pleasure?, Ware encapsulates the pain and longing that comes with heartbreak in the beautifully produced, disco-soaked track, “Spotlight.” 

“Spotlight” opens with humming strings, accentuated by light piano. Ware’s breathy vocals float gently over the instrumentals. The song crescendos, as more strings are layered in the polyharmonic arrangement and Ware exhales “Tell me when I’ll get more / Than a dream of you,” confessing her troubles with letting a past lover go against the richly arranged instruments. 

Suddenly, however, the track crashes down, grounded by a 4-on-the-floor beat. The strings and piano make way for bouncy, dark synthesizers that drive the Hi-NRG tempo of the track. Light handclaps in the back add to the lush, opulent groove of the song, and distorted, squeaky bass and light electronic harmonies complement Ware’s vocals beautifully. 

Throughout “Spotlight,” Ware’s voice glides above the instrumentals. She elegantly yearns for someone who has left her, describing the emotions that have consumed her. “Do anything to make you stay / Do anything to start the day again,” Ware opines. As the chorus approaches, her vocals are layered to accentuate her longing. Her voice in the lines, “If only I could leeetttt you go / If only I could beee alooone,” drip with lushly layered harmonies, as Ware seemingly yearns for this person with every morsel of her being.

As the track proceeds, Ware convinces herself to accept her fate. “Can’t stop the sun from rising / Can’t keep the air we’re breathing / Can’t stop your heart from leaving,” she sings, acknowledging that her heartbreak is inevitable, with funky electronic sounds in the background answering her calls. 

Eventually, Ware’s longing pares down to a whispery “Tell me when I get more than a dream of you.” Ware’s vocals gradually fade away and the underlying beat, synthesizers, and distorted bassline is all that’s left for you to hear.