Labrinth ft. Emeli Sandé – ‘Beneath Your Beautiful’

25 October 2012

We’re Backing Brave! Let’s Make Possible! Just like your favourite ‘inspirational’ marketing slogans that used random adjectives as nouns, here’s the title of Labrinth and Emeli’s chart-topping 2012 collab.

The minor-key strings and piano stir plenty of maudlin heartache in with the personal development stuff – plus we get a big ol’ dollop of Sexism 101. She’s a looker but rejects him, from which he immediately diagnoses the objectively verifiable truth: all this beauty of hers is just a facade, and the only cure for her inauthenticity is hooking up with him. Yes, Sandé’s verses flip the scenario: guy is acting tough to hide inner pain. However, this is just convenient cover for familiar male-biased gender stereotypes: we guys put on a show of bravado while being sensitive inside, but you girls are just superficial man-hating dolly-birds. The reality TV montage vibe of the swelling chorus gives away the real superficiality here. Shove your shallow.