Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
I wouldn’t say that Pierre Porter’s singing in the new single and music video “Marry Me” is the lone excuse for checking out his latest release, but if you think it isn’t enough to carry a track all by itself, this song is going to change your mind. Porter’s vocal is fragile in a few spots but intentionally so, alluding to a willingness to be exposed rarely exploited as much as it should be in romantic pop music. “Marry Me” is a love song straight out of the old school conceptually, but the way it’s delivered is on par with what I’d expect from a modern hit-maker.
When I first listened to this single this week, I was immediately vibing the casual approach Porter takes to his lyrics here, which puts his poetic sensibilities more in line with ‘80s R&B/pop crossovers than it does anything in the contemporary. A balance is struck between his lyricism and the grooves as he favors a swinging beat more common in melodic trap music than it has been anywhere else in recent times, with his singing acting as a bonding agent holding all of the more jagged pieces in the arrangement together. Everything plays out smoothly, to such a point where it’s surprising just how organic the instrumentation in “Marry Me” is.
Aside from his lead vocal, the charm Pierre Porter presents us with in this track is greatly sourced from the fluidity with which he expresses himself in both melody and rhyme. There’s never a point where it sounds like he’s stretching himself thin linguistically or being even somewhat halfhearted in what the harmonies he concocts ultimately communicate. Authenticity unquestionably counts for something among the millennial and gen z crowds that dictate what pop works and what doesn’t, and it’s a feature this artist has no matter the angle we’re breaking his work down from.
2021 has already eclipsed 2020 and then some in terms of soundtracks thanks to the new wave of harmony-focused players coming out the underground at the moment, and if Pierre Porter has his way, I think we’re going to get even more beat-driven chills before the year is over. His is a unique perspective on an iconic strain of pop that has been in desperate need of a few cosmetic and stylistic updates in recent years, and in “Marry Me,” he makes it clear just how personally he takes the music he’s producing today.
Phil Sawyer
