CILIA - HARDCORE HEARTBREAK - DSTP's SONG OF 2016


Hardcore Heartbreak is Dontstopthepop's song of 2016. I was still completely enamoured by her single, Silhouettes In Slow Motion. It is pretty rare to have acts not only release banger after banger but actually build-upon their last song. A quality that both Frida Sundemo (the act at no.2 in my countdown) and Cilia share; an ability to be relentlessly amazing with each and every release. For evidence, just check out the magic quartet of songs she's already released: Clearly, Wilder In The Wind and the aforementioned Silhouettes In Slow Motion. Not once does she drop the ball. Whatsoever. To be sure, with Hardcore Heartbreak, Cilia manages to utterly raise the standards of pop of 2016 and that's why it's the song of 2016.  The amazing song rooted itself in my heart, head and blood. I couldn't get enough of it. 

No matter how good competitors were this year, I constantly found my mind drifting away to Hardcore Heartbreak's top-line. I'd listen to pop songs that were actually rather fantastic and be angry that they weren't Hardcore Heartbreak. Why couldn't all pop songs this year have massive choruses like Hardcore Heartbreak

More critically, why couldn't all pop songs this year have a bonus chorus/refrain-sort-of hybrid-thing that Heartcore Heartbreak boasts? What is a bonus chorus/refrain-sort-hybrid-thing I hear you ask? Ok, I don't quite know how best to describe it but it appears after the second chorus like a massive exclamation point. Let me try and explain. She sings "Don't you say my tears are fake (boy!), this is hardcore heartbreak" (x2) and boom the chant/refrain/hook arrives:



The lyric, nay declaration, of "you have to get that" marks an already poptastic song like Hardcore Heartbreak as beyond incredible. Adorned with big bad-ass vocals from Cilia, it acts its smoking gun leaving her rivals confused, befuddled and bewildered in her pop-dust. When I first heard the song, I had to instantly hit repeat and on the second play I immediately had to stop it mid-track. I was shocked. I think I may have even mouthed the words: "Hold-up. No way! She didn't! She did!". I mean, the audacity of it all. This song was already amazing as it was! 

Cilia released one of the air-tight pop songs of the year. Which ever way I cut other amazing pop songs released this year, none came close to hers. None had me pining for the same perfect-pop construction of Hardcore Heartbreak. Decked-out in bouncy verses, gorgeous chunky synths, epic choruses, the over-dramatic lyrics, dreamy harmonies, delicious backing vocals and its unique refrain of "you have to get that" there was little doubt which song was going to wear the diadem of song of 2016. Congrats Cilia! 

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