Danish musician and producer GRO has just unveiled the single Better Be Yours, a song centred around the complexity of relationships. The song is the title track from a whole album created by GRO, real-name Julie Gro Møller Christiansen, written together with her ex-boyfriend Mads Kinnerup during the period following their break-up.
With a surprising degree of stoicism, Better Be Yours is an optimistic if realistic portrayal of romantic relationships, as the artist explains:
”Better Be Yours is about daring to believe in love, even if it has been beaten up many times and you have been hurt. It is completely natural to have periods when things are not going well in a relationship, and you need a little pep talk to keep the spirit up, so our intention was to make an energetic rave track that invites the listener to keep the courage and patience when things are not working optimally.”
The song itself is a crisp slice of acid pop, wet synths giving emphasis to a clean vocal performance and snappy, minimal drum kicks. GRO’s vocal is deployed in an almost instrument-like fashion – snippets of messages deployed as reassurance to a past, present or future lover, avoiding anything that feels like a formulaic verse-like structure. It makes the slide into Better Be Yours' chorus all the more notable, with a repeated refrain of the song’s title providing the clarity and space that allows some extended instrumental vamping. In particular, the extended chorus and bridge structure that kicks off the song’s second half is an absolute joy. There is a distinct late-90s atmosphere to GRO’s production aesthetic, but it feels fresh here, in part due to its complete embrace of modernism.