Posted by Katherine St Asaph on 03/06/2012 at 10:52 AM Reviews

The Popdust Files: calvin harris, let's go, ne-yo

As we find ourself writing so often: “Let’s Go” was bound to happen. Ne-Yo’s tumbled out from the boudoir to the dance floor thanks to “Beautiful Monster” and “Give Me Everything” and others. Calvin Harris is a thing in the States as well as abroad thanks almost entirely to “We Found Love.” Keep those three songs in mind as you listen to the track below. It’ll be hard not to.

If you’ve heard the aforementioned songs, or even if you’ve just heard one or two, you can hum at least three-quarters of “Let’s Go” on first listen. This is Calvin Harris’s doing; he generally writes to a formula, and if it works, why futz with it? There are minor differences–the tone’s a bit darker, the pre-chorus sounds like Missile Command and not a seagull synth, Ne-Yo is physically incapable of sounding like Rihanna, and the lyrics are seize-the-morning-after club talk instead of lofty wiffle-waffle. But otherwise, you’ve heard this: a build then a burst, no riff too challenging and no beat too relentless.

Is this a bad thing? We’re not even going to play the game of when and where Calvin Harris did or didn’t lose it, because it’s phenomenally pointless. (And YouTube has it covered.) We will note that this structure works a tiny bit better on the floor than for finding love in a hopeless place. And our score will reflect that tiny bit. Come back in six months when this has either been overplayed or vanished, and maybe we’ll think otherwise.

POPDUST SAYS:
[starreview tpl=16]