“Blame It on Your Love” [ft. Lizzo]

“Blame It on Your Love” has been floating around the XCX-verse for a minute. At some point last year, after a snippet of a reggaeton-ish version of the song leaked, it became clear that Charli’s glorious Pop 2 remix of “Blame It on Your Love”—known as “Track 10”—would not be the last we’d hear of it. This was, perhaps, a bittersweet pill to swallow: Charli’s rarely been better than when she’s hitting the bridge in “Track 10,” cutting through the over-the-top digital artifice of PC Music’s production with throat-catching vulnerability. But with a remix this singular and an official release this long in the making, “Blame It on Your Love” has to be pretty good, right?

Sadly, the production by Stargate and a guest verse from Lizzo detract from what was already one of Charli’s best tracks. The trop-house vibe and “wait for the drop” structure of the chorus feel a few years old at this point, though that might be right on time for commercial radio. It would be glorious to see this particular duo score a big ol’ pop hit, but this ain’t it. For one, Lizzo’s high-energy rhymes about not catching feelings stand at odds with Charli’s message, which is about self-sabotaging when it gets too scary to let other people in. Unless Lizzo is going for some next-level “process approach” to the premise, “Blame It on Your Love” is a case of two artists who seemed perfect together on paper, but teamed up without getting on the same page.