The Return

I’m genuinely going to keep it short today, because I’m super drained and I want to do some other not-music-related writing.

This song has one of the cleverest, most confusing, most brilliant music videos ever. At no point in time do you know what’s going to come next, and if you guess, you’ll be wrong. It makes it an extremely compelling video. It’s the most Michel-Gondry-esque music video not actually created by Michel Gondry. One can even see some David Lynch in there. SSION (who has since dropped this moniker and goes by his real name of Cody Critcheloe) himself directed the video. He also has directed music videos for Gossip, Robyn, Yves Tumor, Perfume Genius, Kylie Minogue, Santigold, Peaches, Demi Lovato, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, among many others. 

But it’s not just the video that’s good. “Comeback” is on my beloved playlist entitled “Songs I Always Like,” an ever-expanding list of songs I will enjoy under any circumstances. It takes a very good song to make it onto that particular playlist. The bassline is deliciously artificial, verging on just low-keyboard synth. The song is sung largely in falsetto, or at least digitally altered to go up in pitch. But, like everything that SSION recorded, the song is heavily influenced by punk, with a post-chorus instrumental breakdown that I adore. “Comeback” is also influenced by 60s girl groups! It feels experimental in many ways, but also like a mainstream pop song. It’s both, and neither. 

First and foremost, watch this incredible video. Stick with watching it, no matter what you think at first. The recorded song is shorter than the video, so you can see what he cut on the album version later. But this video may just change your life. It reminded me of the power of queerness and visual maximalism.