Five Times a Day at Minimum

I sent this song to a friend months ago and she said it was okay. Okay. The Ting Tings’ Be the One and she said it was okay. I have been listening to it no fewer than five times a day since I found it, and I cannot explain the specific joy it produces—not happiness exactly, more like a door opening somewhere inside your chest and all this light coming through. The drums hit and something just loosens.

Some music magazine ran a bad review of the Ting Tings at some point, and I think about that review with genuine contempt. The kind reserved for people who can hear a song this good and decide the correct response is to be critical about it in print. There is a type of music criticism that mistakes coolness for intelligence and will dismiss anything that makes you want to move. Be the One makes you want to move. That’s not a flaw. That’s the whole job.