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lettrespromises · 4 years

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┄───➤ LettresPromises informs you : you have one notification. ❜

──➤ 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓 : 𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐍 𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒.

──➤ Smoker sent you a letter, would you like to read it? ❜

@theastroooooworld sent a letter : ❝hello my lover 🧚🏼‍♀️, i hope you are well no matter when you see this request !since i love above all your writing, could you make a scenario with another love of my life : Smoker ? in which this angel becomes aware that he loves his best friend from childhood, but this confuses him a lot and he ends up not knowing how to act with her anymore and until he decides to tell her ? please make it very sweet and full of good vibes ! I trust you once again for this declaration of love !𓊕 — juste entre nous deux; tu es une personne formidable et j'avais juste besoin de te le dire, je t'aime fort 💜🤸🏼‍♀️❞

the author’s letter : ❝dear cam, i couldn’t be more honored of writing this request for you, especially because it concerns smoker and he has no business being this hot but oh well!! thank you for trusting me with your wonderful idea, i hope you’ll enjoy this promised letter. je t’aime si fort, t’es plus qu’incroyable et j’aimerai que tu le saches.❞

──➤ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 : pure fluff. ─➤ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : none. ➤ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 : 2.6K. Excerpt of the letter : ❝Only then did he realize that he had never felt an agonizing sensation of vacuity coursing through his veins when he was feeling frustrated. It was odd, it was foreign, he felt weak. His subconscious screamed at him to associate this haunting feeling of loneliness to the lack of your presence, and for once he agreed— Smoker knew he felt different, in the worst way possible, when you were not around, so he let out another puff of smoke.❞

Is there anything Smoker won’t put words around? Yes, there is.

There is the consuming rage fueled by his unquenched thirst to capture more pirates and bring his status of « white hunter » closer to glory. But he reminds himself that perhaps some pirates deserve to be set free as his orbs lay on the poster of Monkey D. Luffy and the letters of the word « wanted » screaming at him. There is the sense of injustice within the epitome of justice, such acerbic poetry, and the cacophony of remorses making his jaw clench every now and then. There is the frustration of acknowledging that there will forever be a gap between his own definition of justice and his superiors’ definition of justice, particularly Akainu’s version which appears too merciless to his own liking.

And there is the haunting torment of being incapable of qualifying properly his feelings.

He knows what anger feels like— he knows how anger bends his body, he knows that anger will push his sanity down a pit and he will have to sit here and observe an unhinged version of himself crawl out of said pit.

He knows what indifference feels like— but he barely realizes that his eyes roll back whenever his superior wishes, yet again, to narrow the notion of freedom within justice, he knows that his brain purposefully decides not to absorb any given information pooling out of Akainu’s mouth.

Smoker knows how his emotions manifest themselves and recognizes them kinesthetically.

But Smoker also fails to identify the newcomers.

« State your name and business before coming in. » It also seems that he has trouble recognizing the five distinct taps of your knuckles on the door leading to his office, but oh well.

Your knuckles brush the wooden surface of the door until reaching the doorknob and twisting it in the process, you close the door behind you, leaving his pseudo orders waiting in front of the door at the same time. « I’m kind of hurt, I thought you’d recognize my secret knocking style, we’ve spent ages creating this secret language as kids. »

But how could Smoker not recognize the sound of your voice and the honey dripping down your vocal cords?

He shifted in his seat, secretly thanking for your presence so his orbs could properly project a different visual than the bland reports scattered across his desk, and he thanked you a second time for allowing him to visually embrace the shape of your body, but he kept that to himself. « Should I give you a reminder of how old we are, Y/N? I’m almost certain we’re way past that age. » Smoker stated, a puff of smoke punctuated the end of his sentence.

« No doubt, you’re definitely past that age. » You trailed off whilst making your way over to his desk, a grin which radiated ill intentions shone brought amongst your facial features. You made a seat out of his desk without asking for permission, Smoker lightly tapped your left thigh in return, a weak attempt to make you get off of his desk. The experience granted by having shared the majority of your life with Smoker offered you the prestige of being free of your own deeds around him, without ever having to worry about pseudo consequences. « But I do have amazing news for you, I’m sure you’ll love it. » You finished, an amused gleam shining in the irises of your eyes at his quirked eyebrow, a silent way to tell you to explain further.

« I’m coming with you and Tashigi on Punk Hazard! Now, now… I know your emotionless self won’t let it show but I know, I just know you’re thrilled to hear that. » You slammed the report proving the sincerity of your words regarding your presence on the mission held on Punk Hazard on his desk in a loud thud, and the proudest grin appeared across your face, just to emphasize that silent victory over Smoker who had always refused to go on a mission with you, but never once did he admit it was because he was afraid of seeing you getting hurt.

Another puff of smoke left his lips, out of frustration, he recognized that he was feeling frustrated because of the way his teeth would hold his cigars a bit tighter, often approaching the limit of breaking them in two.

« You seem so eager to come on Punk Hazard, but I don’t think you realize how dangerous this mission is. » He grumbled, his eyes finding yours lost amongst the metaphorical electricity created in the room because of the tension. Smoker couldn’t quite tell what frustrated him the most— was it the fact that Akainu, out of all people, granted you the wish to come on Punk Hazard? Was it the fact he envied your ability to willingly ignore the magnitude of danger? Or was it the fact you called him emotionless?

Emotionless.

Smoker wasn’t emotionless, see— he was feeling frustrated. But, nonetheless, the words echoed in his head until it lost its meaning. Was he emotionless? No, no, no he was not. Smoker was not emotionless. He was frustrated, frustration is a valid feeling therefore is he able to show emotions. But only now did he wonder if it was genuine frustration.

« I didn’t reach this rank by slacking off, you and I both know it. I’ll see you soon enough, Smoker. »

He found his own answer when you hopped off his desk and left the room, the sound of the door being shut close was his sole wake-up call. Only then did he realize that he had never felt an agonizing sensation of vacuity coursing through his veins when he was feeling frustrated. It was odd, it was foreign, he felt weak. His subconscious screamed at him to associate this haunting feeling of loneliness to the lack of your presence, and for once he agreed— Smoker knew he felt different, in the worst way possible, when you were not around, so he let out another puff of smoke.

This enigma kept him up at the worst moments, and like every enigma, obtaining an answer to soothe the inner pain caused by the latest obsession of his mind was almost impossible. He immediately knew he couldn’t talk about it to Hina, or worse, Tashigi. Either way, he was sure to be met with either a harsh judgement and could already imagine Hina saying « You’ve mellowed ever since we joined the navy, Hina is amused. » or the inevitable stutters cascading from Tashigi’s mouth. Smoker was on his own, drown in the torment of his own emotions.

The sole temporary solution he found was to ignore you, if his body and mind had to hurt then so be it, he couldn’t handle the agonizing pain of seeing you go away, Smoker had mentally told himself to be a martyr and accept it.

You, on the other one hand, did not bother too much about his absence, you figured it was his way to mentally prepare himself ahead of a mission. You accepted it too, both his absence and the inexorable feeling of your heartstrings being bent in unimaginable ways.

Smoker lighted up the fifth cigar in a row now, and once more he blindly trusted the aftereffects of your absence for the cause of this obsession, smoking some more was merely a placebo to soothe the torture brought by the lack of answer. Truthfully, Smoker hadn’t spoken in a while, perhaps he had nothing to say as long as he knew what was going on. He spoke rarely and judged the value of his words before actually speaking— sure, he had directed his subalterns here and there to organize the ship on their way to Punk Hazard, but aside from the obligations of his ranks, he found nothing to say. Or rather, his mind didn’t grant him the ability to talk until he figured what was this haunting feeling which had no familiarity with frustration anymore. But was he emotionless?

Instead, Smoker let the rhythm of the waves crashing against the ship in the darkest hours of the night to rock his thoughts. His hazel orbs never left once the ‘wanted’ posters of Monkey D. Luffy and Trafalgar Law— of course he knew their faces and who they were, but the couldn’t trust his body anymore and wondered whether or not this secret emotional disease was going to affect his memory. Smoker hoped it wouldn’t have any impact on his memories with you, he was willing to let amnesia consume him whole and burn everything he knew except any memory which had your name written all over it.

From that moment, Smoker knew it was definitely not frustration.

« Smoker? Smoker? Earth to big cigar boy? You can go to sleep, it’s my turn to watch over the ship and you kind of look like a zombie if I’m being honest. » He hadn’t even noticed you entered the main cabin and thus he cursed himself for doing so, but Smoker noticed you looked hesitant by the way you were fiddling with your fingers, it was something you always did as a child.

Most of all, Smoker noticed something else— whenever you were in the same vicinity as him, the pain soothed, it faded away to let the most blissful sensation appear instead. Yet another question he will never obtain the answer to.

Using the grip on the armrests as a support, Smoker stood up and headed towards the door to leave you alone whilst you were on watching duty, that was the initial plan : head towards the door and leave. Head towards the door and leave. Head towards the door and-…

« Y/N, can I ask you something? » … And shamefully ask you to ease his pain instead.

You looked at him with a quizzical look painted across your facial features, both at the sudden interpellation, but mostly at the fainted grip he was holding on your wrist. « Sure, I’m all ears. » You replied, curiosity tainted the way your words came out but you kept your eyes locked on his frame anyway.

Smoker took a sudden drag of his cigars to ease his nerve and subconsciously give him a few seconds to organize the isolated parts of sentences shooting in his mind. Truthfully, he didn’t even know if this was necessary given that he ignored how he was feeling or what caused his body to hurt so much, translating this agony into words was beyond impossible. « You have to promise not to tell anyone about this. » He inquired, his orbs adopted a darker tone on the demanding tone coating his words and the hold on your wrist became temporarily tighter, you hummed in response, allowing him to continue. « If I’m being honest, I think I’m sick or have caught some kind of disease. It’s odd and quite impossible to properly be explained. I don’t know what I’m feeling, but it’s manifesting through this constant sensation of feeling empty. It weighs on my mind, and I have no idea what’s causing it. »

You quirked your brow in response, genuinely concerned as to whether or not Smoker was actually sick— after all, as you were approaching the extreme binary climate of Punk Hazard, such possibility couldn’t be evicted. You allowed your orbs to roam over his face, a guilty pleasure, and besides visible confusion, you couldn’t depict any physical symptom.

« Um, right? Do you have any idea when did this start? » You asked, hoping to obtain more hints about his situation.

« I hate to admit it but it started when you left my office last week, and now that you’re here I feel better, as in I don’t feel this emptiness anymore. » He continued, and for the first time in your life, you could admire his emotions dancing under the moonlight. « I was wondering if you felt sick, too. »

« So, if I sum it up you feel ‘empty’ and ‘in pain’ when I’m not around. » You couldn’t help but bend your lips into a smile which you knew he already hated by the ill intentioned looks of it.

« Sort of, but you haven’t answered my question : are you ill or not? » A question so innocent which found its answer in the shameless laugh escaping your lips, Smoker covered your mouth with his palm— not because he cared about the quality of the slumber of his soldiers, but rather because the sound of your laugh was awakening something else in him which was too harsh to handle.

You delicately wrapped your fingers around his wrist, slowly making him retreat his limb to his torso, and to his greatest pleasure, your laughter left an imprint on your facial features in the shape of a grin. « Would you believe me if I were to tell you that I found the cure? » You asked, already imagining the outcome of a possible answer.

« Huh? What is it? » He responded to your question with yet another question, but there and only there he found the answer to his haunting enigma when your fingers invaded his vision field and threw the sole obstacles to the apex of the situation, his cigars, on the floor before stepping on them to extinguish them. And there and only there, Smoker felt peace when your lips crashed onto his in a delicately harsh liplock whilst your palms were cupping his cheeks. It came as a reflex, and he couldn’t blame himself for it because he had fantasized about this scenario several times while hoping it would be the cure to his problems, Smoker caged you against his chest as his forelimbs protectively claimed your waist.

The more your lips were lingering on his, the more he felt every ounce of pain exude his body by his every pores— you were the cure, you were the answer to his enigma and always have been. If his lungs hadn’t failed him, Smoker would have gladly delivered himself into the temptations of your lips once more, judging by the way he blindly chased after your lips when you broke the kiss.

Another giggle escaped your lips as your thumbs brushed invisible motions against his cheeks, « Do you still feel empty at all? » you asked, such a rhetorical question, right? Smoker looked at you quizzically but then it hit him— he felt full, and vacuity had lost sense. « No, I don’t feel empty anymore. » He concluded to your amused smile.

« You’re not sick and never have been, or maybe it’s a sickness to you, but you’re in love, Smoker. That’s what you were feeling. And if I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling quite ‘empty’ myself too. » You confessed and opened your heart to him so he could admire each tone of vivid color painting your feelings for him which caused him to tighten his hold to bring you as close as humanly possible. He had found his cure and needed as much contact as possible. « I suppose you’re right, I do feel better when you’re by my side. »

And here, you planted yet another peck on his lips and gave in to the sweet temptation of savoring the taste of his lips once more. The gleam shining in the corner of your eyes reflected nothing but genuine love, and you knew it was the same gleam reflecting in his own orbs. « I’ve never been more glad to be sick in my entire life. » Smoker concluded, and kissed these words into the skin of the crown of your hair.

That’s when Smoker knew that perhaps he wasn’t emotionless, or at least, he was able to feel emotions as long as you were by his side.

#one piece #smoker x reader #one piece x reader #smoker #one piece reader insert #one piece imagine #one piece oneshot #smoker hcs #smoker imagine #smoker oneshot #one piece hcs

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thesinglesjukebox · 7 years

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CARLY RAE JEPSEN - CUT TO THE FEELING [7.40] Take us to the "Feeling"...

Will Adams: For a year whose first half has been dire in terms of its pop music -- between Katy Perry's hamfisted attempts at swagger and seriousness, Ed Sheeran's turgid reduction of R&B, the One Direction boys flailing about, everything else blurring into one dreary headache -- "Cut to the Feeling" feels practically beamed from the heavens. It wastes no time cutting to its own feeling, a starburst chorus of unabashed emotion and confetti. It's quintessentially Carly, and it's a breath of fresh air. [9]

Ryo Miyauchi: My, what a classic Carly Rae Jepsen chorus: hitting with the boom of a jet engine, it's the indestructible space where she can confess it all, even if she ends up sounding like she wants a little too much. Now only if everything leading to it gambled with the same risk. [6]

Alfred Soto: "I wanna wake up with you all in tangles, oh!" is a pop lyric for our times, worthy of a caffeinated chorus into which Carly Rae Jepsen pours a half decade's worth of lived euphoria -- after all, isn't "cut to the feeling" the Jepsen ethos? The verse melodies didn't grab my ear, though, and after a couple listens "Cut to the Feeling" sounds closer to a b-side than "Cry" did. [6]

Tim de Reuse: Exuberant, glossy, candy-sweet, a pleasantly meaty arrangement, and a subtly pop-savvy hook; yeah, it's CRJ again, but a cumulative hour and a half of Emotion-related material in recent memory forces a comparison, and this isn't nearly as exciting. Sound design compromises were made to fit this tune seamlessly onto the soundtrack of a summer blockbuster, I imagine; it's not bad within the constraint that the end result sound like ten thousand other things that have come out in the last five years, but I don't know if it would have caught my attention with anyone else's name on it. [6]

Alex Clifton: We all know Carly Rae Jepsen is truly #queenofeverything, and this comeback single proves it. Soundtrack songs can be hit or miss (see "Love Me Like You Do," the dreariest thing Goulding's ever done, vs. the effervescent "Can't Stop the Feeling!") but this transcends both of those. I'm glad that this was left off Emotion, as I'm not sure it would've fit in with that particular set of songs, but this is a hell of a B-side that she saved for us. When she screams "I wanna cut to the feeling!" and her voice breaks, I'm filled with vicious joy and I want to shout it with her -- which is all I can ever ask for pop music. I'm left breathless and needing more. As 2017 gets increasingly darker, I thank the gods every day for Carly Rae Jepsen. [9]

Anaïs Escobar Mathers: Humans don't deserve dogs or this planet, and we definitely don't deserve Carly Rae Jepsen, but we have them so let's be grateful. Synthpop summer vibes at their best, and was that a little sample of "Lucky Star" in the intro? Carly Rae Jepsen is audio Zoloft. [10]

Thomas Inskeep: The world is going to shit; every single day brings awful headlines, starting from but not limited to the White House. Things can sometimes feel hopeless. But then Carly Rae Jepsen, the true current queen of pop, surprise-releases 3:26 of pure fucking sunshine. And for those three-and-a-half minutes, things aren't as bad, and might even feel good. "Cut to the Feeling" shimmers with the same ebullience that made Emotion such a perfect pop album from start to finish. This is a car-windows-down summertime singalong, full of joy and light and energy and love. This is exactly what we need from pop right now. This is pure happiness. [10]

Anthony Easton: The production is a giant steam roller, handclaps and kick drums obliterating anything else in the track. It's a good thing that her voice has been so nondescript anyway. It also destroys any sense of eros and any ambivalence. I would like this more if she owned her ambition. An obligation towards joy is as grating as an obligation towards melancholy. Lastly, how do you cut to a feeling when this completely refuses anything human, and doesn't even do anything interesting with the possibility of a production so robotic it could be inhumane? [2]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: As someone whose patience is easily tested by the early, formative stages of a relationship (romantic or otherwise), "Cut To The Feeling" seems terrifyingly unhealthy. It relentlessly provides the sort of delirious joy that I would be content to soak in, completely ignoring the wellspring of "authentic" emotional experience available from repeated interactions with actual people. I often ask myself: can any lived experience truly compete with the stuff I'm feeling from X or Y piece of art? And if so, why even invest in all that energy when a 3 minute pop song comes close enough? The thing is, Carly Rae Jepsen doesn't make music that allows you to be satisfied with what it offers on a strictly musical level. Because in the act of putting ineffable emotions to song, she paints them as the irresistible high they are, and it overflows into an encouragement for you to pursue them yourself. It's no different on "Cut To The Feeling," and Carly has everything here down to a science. I took a look at the numbers, and that chorus really does hit early. Of the 26 officially released songs from the Emotion sessions, "Feeling" gets there the fastest. It's also one of only five tracks to contain a four-bar pre-chorus. Coupled with those pounding drums, the anticipation you have suddenly tumbles into the chorus' contagious energy. It took me by surprise on first listen, and the best thing I can say about the transition is that it feels like a natural representation of unforced euphoria. And Carly's a killer pop star because she knows how to transfer that experience with complete, relatable authenticity. "Cut To The Feeling" is a song about finding the value in a certain end goal and making conscious steps to reach it. That this song makes me want to do just that in my own life is a blessing, and for Carly I am grateful. [10]

Katherine St Asaph: The natural endpoint of Emotion's maximalism: an intro of "Lucky Star" and Cinderella glitter, a metaphor as evocative of cinema as slicing through bone, a chorus that sends Carly's voice into overdrive and pastiches about three different A*Teens songs. It's almost enough to make you ignore the fact that she forgot to write a pre-chorus. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: She wants to get straight to the good bit, and that goes double for the composition: "Cut to the Feeling" procrastinates through its verses. Jepsen is in these moments not an overwhelming melodic and emotional force; she hangs back as the track centers on its heart-thump boom of a kick drum, sidelined from her own tune. The good bit though; oh my gosh, it's good. As with "I Really Like You," Jepsen wants to go too far too fast, but she was bashful there, and here she charges into her desire. Smashes of synth and guitar launch her "I wanna..." out of daydream and into the literal: cut, and now she is dancing on the roof, now she is waking up intertwined with you, now she is playing where angels play. [8]

Edward Okulicz: Somewhere in my DNA there must be a mutation that makes me immune to Carly Rae Jepsen songs that by all rights should send me into fits of high rapture. I hear the delicious ingredients -- an irresistible beat for fist-pumping or banging on the dashboard, a clever nick from the intro to "Lucky Star," and a plenty-vibrant vocal performance -- and some of the lyrics are tingly and evocative. But those verses are spinning their wheels instead of doing tricks over the terrain, the pre-chorus "aaah"s must be placeholders and the chorus is a fine description of euphoria, but I don't feel that euphoria. [6]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Liking Carly Rae Jepsen is an ugly business. The songs are never that bad, they're usually very pretty and still maintain an earnestness that everyone loves. But with her continued edging around the traditions of linear career momentum (I think doing a Broadway Cinderella musical was honestly more appreciable in my mind than her being a critical darling headlining music festivals but not actually doing fuck all as far as radio airplay) the divisions among who "THE REAL CRJ FANS" are is getting a bit strenuous. "Cut to the Feeling" having a hint of controversy because it makes people argue this "Kiss vs. Emotion" debate is shocking because yes, it's an okay Carly Rae cut (which let's be honest, that's all the B-Sides record so many of us appreciated really contained, and there's a lot more of those than we like to pretend). But the biggest irony is that Jepsen is sampling Madonna... by this point in her career Madonna was making True Blue. If you ask the real world, the world outside people who become super passionate about the songs the big bad world doesn't touch? She's barely Debbie G. [6]

Stephen Eisermann: I've spent a lot of time wondering what everybody's fascination with Carly Rae Jepsen stems from. After spending more time with her last LP than I ever cared to, I was left just as dumbfounded as the first time I spun it. With this song, I think I finally get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it. What I said about J Hus applies here: Carly fucking commits. It's so hard not to be infected by her happiness and infatuation during the first verse, similar to how it's hard not to want to dance while listening to "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." Unfortunately, though, the infatuation this song infects me with is short lived, because the strain on her voice in the higher parts of the chorus sober me up real quick. Imagine crushing hard on someone for, like, a week and making up pet names and stuff only to realize the crush is a good friend of your ex. It's all heart eyes and winky faces until it's not, and this is definitely not. [3]

Ian Mathers: This is great, but I guess where I'm at is I just don't get the people who think its quality means it's weird that beloved national treasure Jepsen isn't a bigger star. Far as I can tell highest this has charted is #68 (in Scotland!), and it feels to me like it's a great example of some modern, non-rock based equivalent to power pop -- absolutely beloved by its fans and well regarded critically, and failing utterly to get wider traction for reasons that baffle us but will never change. I'd be thrilled to be wrong, but our girl feels distinctly subcultural at this point. [8]

Eleanor Graham: CRJ's lyrical genius stems from her respect for the nameless. It reminds me of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf: "I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it. And yet I believe you'll be sensible of a little gap. But you'd clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality." That elementary, naked phrase, "cut to the feeling," does exactly what is stated. Like "take me to the feeling" and "all that we could do with this emotion" before it, the line captures the very essence of the thing without caring to elaborate. And loses nothing of its reality. What a gift. [8]

Juana Giaimo: What makes the songs of Emotion so especial is, as Andrew Ryce put it in 2015, that each of them "takes a different feeling and makes it seem like the most important thing in the world." "Cut to the Feeling" also fits this idea, since it's from the same era. This is the time to scream out loud your shameless devotion to your emotions, or as the lyrics say, "I want it all or nothing; no more in-between." The only purpose of the verses' tension is to serve the explosion of the chorus. There is a sense of urgency that saturates the whole song -- there is no time for subtle flirting -- that is joined by a certain dreaminess, resulting in a song that is looking to go beyond reality -- because isn't finding the one you want beyond reality too? [8]

William John: I'm not entirely sure when it was that my cynical attitude as to whether we needed yet another treatise on ebullience from Carly Rae Jepsen dissipated -- either at the moment the first chorus of "Cut To The Feeling" hits, not so much with any conventional lead-in or slow build, but as though a freight train has arrived early, or upon hearing the somersaulting "whoops" peppered throughout the choruses, serving as metonymy for the overarching sheer delight. Either way, by the end of the song my doubts had been long washed away by Jepsen's wide-eyed elation. If anything, I'd been convinced that too much sincere effervescence is never enough. [8]

Lauren Gilbert: I write this blurb after checking the news: another attack, another death, another headline blaming innocents. At this point, I don't feel outrage so much as exhaustion; I am old, and tired, and perhaps this is just the world we live in now; this is reality. And then there's the spin-up of the intro, the drums kicking in, Carly's exuberance infectious. It makes me feel like I'm 17, but not the 17 year-old I actually was (stressed, rushing to class, afraid I wouldn't Make It, whatever making it meant); some idealized 17 where dreams really do come true. It's a rush of joy, the feeling of flooring it on the 5, of your life and your future opening up before you. It's the aural equivalent of the feeling of the sun on my face and the thin blue line of the Pacific in the corner of my vision. This is Jepsen's greatest strength as an artist: conveying emotions in bright colors, all in on life. [9]

Will Rivitz: You know the "Band Geeks" episode of Spongebob? Where, after enduring about nine minutes and thirty seconds of aggression and humiliation from his nemesis Squilliam, Squidward enjoys a massive rush of schadenfreude as his motley band of Bikini Bottom ne'er-do-wells pulls off a glorious '80s power ballad to conclude the episode? "Cut To The Feeling" is "Sweet Victory" minus the comeuppance. It's the audio equivalent of powersliding to the front of the stage as a bitchin' guitar solo mirrors every motion of your exultation, except instead of guitars it's synths as big and bright as the sun. This is Jem and the Holograms, this is a Sailor Moon transformation sequence. It's "Run Away With Me" but completely different, except the point of both is exactly the same. Carly Rae is a savant with respect to many parts of pop, but perhaps her most satisfying trick is her ability to kickstart the most vivid sprints through euphoria I've ever heard. "Cut To The Feeling" is the perfect name for this song; I've rarely felt The Feeling so immediately and tangibly present. [10]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]

#Carly Rae Jepsen #Cut To The Feeling #TSJ Best of 2017

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