Ellie Goulding keeps testing the waters with new single
Ellie Goulding is on to her third single release of the year. After she kicked off a new era with ‘Close To Me’ last year, she followed up with the stunning piano ballad ‘Flux’ early this year. A few months later, she dropped the nostalgic and radio friendly bop ‘Sixteen’. She is now trying to return to former levels of success with the hiphop inspired Juice WRLD collaboration ‘Hate Me’. Again, the material is nowhere near the heights of her career.

Let us start with the good news here. ‘Hate Me’ is well produced and contemporary sounding pop and hiphop hybrid with a hook that sticks. At the same time however, it does sound quite generic, the chorus is repetitive and the track as a whole quite monotonous. So far this era, ‘Flux’ is the only track that sounds like Goulding actually put her heart and soul into making it. On her Instagram she tries to shut down those who criticize the new track ‘Hate Me’, saying that she is working on a ‘classical’ album of which ‘Flux’ will definitely be a part as it means the most to her. Until then she says she wants to keep releasing new tunes for her own pleasure, telling her fans ‘I could also just release nothing’.

It is hard to judge where Goulding’s career is going with this as ‘Flux’ was the least commercially successful of the new singles, but at the same time sounded the most like her. Although ‘Hate Me’ is a nice enough tune to keep the wait bearable and maybe to gain some airplay too, but this type of generic track is certainly not what I hope to find on Ellie Goulding’s next record. To me, it almost sounds like the label is telling her to make more radio friendly and contemporary sounding work, while her heart is actually with the more ‘classical’ stuff that has not seen the light of day yet. Let us hope that Goulding at least gets the freedom to release the tunes that mean the most to her.