Song of the Week: Noah Kahan & Julia Michaels – Hurt Somebody

Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe. All my Songs of the Week are featured on my Top of the Poptastic playlist, along with the rest of my faves from 2017.

I’ve featured a few songs written by songwriter supreme Julia Michaels in this section, but this is her first appearance as a singer herself. Ironically, it’s with a track that she didn’t actually write. Hurt Somebody was originally released as a solo single by guitar-pop artist Noah Kahan last year, while the new duet version debuted on last week’s New Music Friday. Produced by Lorde’s Royals collaborator Joel Little, it has a clipped acoustic-pop sound, and lyrics expressing a sentiment that isn’t often heard: “Hold me close and I won’t leave, cos it hurts when you hurt somebody.” The singers are basically saying that they want to leave their partner, but it’s easier not to, because hurting the other person would hurt them too. It’s an unusually honest explanation as to why people often lead others on in relationships, a situation that’s rarely explored from the leader-on’s perspective. The song hasn’t got much traction yet, but I think it’s very radio friendly and definitely has hit potential.

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