Selena Gomez - Bad liar

Pop divas are generic enough to group them in a category that will most certainly cover a big bunch of singers that sound exactly the same and even manage to look very similar. It happened in the late 90s when a bunch of "innocent" blondes appeared in mass and pretty much you could get Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson or Mandy Moore mixed and it wouldn't matter because none of them was relevant enough to deep a strong and personal impact in music (unlike some of they did in celebrity culture); the story is repeating and right now it's difficult to distinguish between Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande, Demi Lovato and Vanessa Hudgens (just to mention a few) that are young brunettes with hispanic blood and a very sexual lolita appeal.

One could argue that these divas at times manage to nail a pop single (Britney's Toxic, Christina's Dirrty or Ariana's Into You), but none of them have managed to create an album that is truly worthy of an overall appreciation. They are too busy being celebrities that they forget forging a career as a musician. But some people have managed to break that boundary: Beyoncé, Rihanna and Carly Rae Jepsen have gained some respect with solid albums that transgressed pop norms. Would Selena Gomez be next one to follow that path?

In Bad Liar, for the first time in her career, she offers us something truly unique. Sampling Talking Heads' bass line in Psycho Killer as the backbone of the track, to gave some sense of pop minimalism and intimacy that we didn't heard since Lorde's debut. She sounds conversational, almost in a stream of conscience way, finding the object of her affection in different person's faces and offering a king-size space in her room and her heart. If she has been constantly criticized by her narrow voice range (opposed to Ariana Grande's potent vocal instrument), here she makes this restrictions a weapon, she plays with intimacy and self-restrictions to get some playful depth.

This is the kind of pop that defies the norms of what's popular and instead aims to proposition. Just like Beyoncé's Lemonade and Carly Rae Jepsen's Emotion, this track is not doing brilliantly in the charts, so it'll be a matter of time to see which will be the path that Gomez and her producers decide to follow, so Bad Liar might either be her "oh, once she did a great song" or the beginning of something truly meaningful for pop music.