I Thought You Were Saving My Life

Jessie Ware “Mirage (Don’t Stop)”

Jessie Ware’s vocal melody in “Mirage” is the same as the verses of Bananarama’s “Cruel Summer,” but that didn’t quite hit me at first – it sounded immediately familiar, but the feeling of this song is very different and the lyrics fake you out a bit by nodding to another famous song from 1983, “Last Night A DJ Saved My Life” by Indeep. Ware’s new songs are referential even when they’re not directly interpolating old hits, and much like Dua Lipa she’s side-stepping declining recent trends in dance music in favor of something that sounds more classic and rooted in disco. But whereas Lipa’s songs have a brighter, bolder pop feel, Ware stays in the “classy” and “adult” pop lane she’s been in for years. She’s more of an aesthete, and excels when she’s curating bits of the past to create a vibe in the moment. “Mirage” conveys a luxurious sensibility; it presents dance pop as an aspirational product rather than a functional commodity good.

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