Track Review: Selena Gomez, ‘Single Soon’

After scoring one of the year’s most enduring hits — a tender Afrobeats duet with Rema called “Calm Down” — Selena Gomez has returned with her first solo non-soundtrack single since 2020’s “Boyfriend,” a deluxe cut from that year’s Rare album. In the interim, the Only Murders in the Building star picked up her first Grammy nomination for Revelación, a Latin pop EP, guested on songs from Camilo (“999”) and Coldplay (“Let Somebody Go”), and released the soundtrack single “My Mind & Me.”

For her first proper solo single in over three years, Gomez returns in full power pop mode. Gone are the flourishes of dembow and reggaeton, and likewise for the comparatively edgier indie-adjacent pop of Rare. “Single Soon” finds Gomez staunchly in the lane of middle-of-the-road pop.

With a slew of topline collaborators including Benny Blanco, Cashmere Cat, Benjamin Levin, and Selena herself, among others, “Single Soon” is plainly gunning for reliable, ever-present Top 40 electropop. Big glistening synths are the name of the game on the new Gomez track; somewhere between a 1989 reject and a nameless mid-set dance-pop song by a C-list pop star, “Single Soon” is… not bad. It’s certainly not a great song, and it somehow sounds cheaper than a number of her Disney tracks, but “Single Soon” serves its purpose.

This is not a career-best, nor is it even really a song strong enough to launch an album off of. It’s perfect for those hazy, half-asleep late-night rides in the passenger seat when you just need a moment to breathe after a bustling night out. You throw on whatever the local top 40 station is and cool down to some nondescript dance-pop about being single — but no one’s quite sure if you’re convincing yourself or your ex about how good being single is.

Score: 50