So… I spent a lot of time complaining about drops on the worst list.  How they were boring, how they were lame, how they were irritating and obnoxious at worst.  I get that it’s a regular feature in music now, to the point that even rock music is beginning to use them, meaning that I now have to bow down to our EDM overlords.  So I figured I would have to discuss a drop that I actually find tolerable.  Well, here’s a song that features a drop done right.

“Someone Else” – Rezz & Grabbitz

Alternative
#15 peak, #43 year-end

Cool, I get to start with two local artists.  Well, almost.

Isabelle Rezazadeh, better known by her pseudonym Rezz, is an electronic artist from the Ukraine who settled in Niagara Falls (the Canadian side), while Nicholas Chiari, better known as Grabbitz, is a fellow up-and-coming electronic artist from Buffalo.  They’ve both generated buzz independently over the last several years, but have had no real hits between them.  This year, they generated their closest thing to a hit with “Someone Else,” which failed to get past #15 on the Alternative Airplay charts but did make the year-end list.  And boy, is this a song that is worthy of the hype.

Rezz admitted this past year that “Almost all of my songs are just me messing around.  And as soon as I come up with a melody or a sound that inspires me, it all comes together from there.”  This time out, Rezz’s muse is a demented version of the EDM trend in the mid-2010’s, when artists like Avicii and Swedish House Mafia would start with a focus on an actual instrument (usually a piano or acoustic guitar) before piling on the layers of electronica.  “Someone Else” begins with a simple, but effective bass pattern that sets an ominous mood and prepares us for what’s coming.  

While Rezz performs the instrumentation on this song, Grabbitz handles the lyrics this time out.  His lyrics are a pretty simple concept, but it fits Rezz’s music quite well.  It’s about the person that actually lives inside can be completely different based on their appearance.  With just one verse and a bridge, the best representation is the chorus, which is repeated four times in the song:

Who are you when I’m not looking?
You’re like an angel sent from Hell
Despite those eyes that hooked me
When I’m not looking, you are someone else

But the lyrics aren’t the reason to listen to this song.  Normally, I’d dock points off a song that constantly repeats the chorus, but this song gets a pass because the chorus is by far the best melody in the song.  While the melody in the verses can get pretty generic, the chorus melody is haunting, demonstrating beauty behind the darkness of the sound.  And while Grabbitz isn’t necessarily the best singer I’ve ever heard, his voice is perfect for this melody.  The timbre in his voice is exactly what this song needed, with how it rises to the top of Grabbitz’s vocal range right back down to his normal setting.

Then we reach the drop.  So why does this drop work?  On first listen, it may be unimpressive with how slowly the music rises after the drop.  But it’s all about spacing and how Rezz sets up the listener for the real payoff.  After some ugly, sinister electronic effects, Rezz adds in percussion that causes the electronics to crash with twice the effect of the first round.  The big reason why these beats work despite said ugly sound is the texture.  These aren’t standard, blocky electronic elements, these are warped, vibrating beats that cause the most unsettling mood of all in the song.  It’s as if the beats had teeth.  This is not a dance song for the feet, it’s a dance song for the mind – a new form of the trip hop that has been missing from the Alternative landscape for the past twenty years now.

And adding to Rezz’s skill as a producer is how she complements Grabbitz’s singing in each chorus.  In the first chorus, it’s a clean electric guitar accompanying Grabbitz.  But for each chorus, the dynamics keep expanding until the last chorus, which adds numerous electronic beats into the mix.  But the best effect of all is easy to miss – after a set of percussive effects in the third chorus quickens and builds tension, it explodes on the final chorus as a hazy, starlit disintegration. The song is a trance, and this final effect proves it.  

SOURCES

“Rezz And Grabbitz Ponder Identity Issues In the Video For ‘Someone Else.’”  Alternative Press 27 April 2020.  Web.  20 January 2021.

IMAGE SOURCES

Single cover from Soundcloud

Photo of Rezz from Billboard

Photo of Grabbitz from For The Wolves HQ