Music Review: Zedd & Selena Gomez "I Want You To Know"

Zedd & Selena Gomez
I Want You To Know
Album: True Colors
Year: 2015
               
          Selena Gomez finally gets together with her longtime crush in the softhearted  “I Want You To Know.”
 
                   Docile synths open the single, setting a safe tone. Part of the chorus begins the single. She sits next to him and strokes his face. She tells him the hurt and pain is over for them. She tells him they share the attitudes towards life and have similar goals. She wants to be with him. (“I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light/I want you to know that I'm all yours/You and me run the same course.”)
 
                     She doesn’t know what to expect. But she doesn’t mind. Over the years, she has some small talk with him. However, no real time was spent together. Each time, it broke her heart. (“I'm slippin' down a chain reaction/And here I go, here I go, here I go, go/And once again, I'm yours in fractions/It takes me down, pulls me down, pulls me down low.”)
 
                  In the pre-chorus, she says they have nowhere else to go. He’s left with a decision to make. Once it’s safe to go out again, she’ll leave. Tonight, she tells him, he will be himself or stay in his comfort zone. (“Honey, it's rainin' tonight/But storms always have an eye, have an eye/Tell me your cover tonight/Or tell me lies, tell me lies, lies, lies.”)
 
                The full chorus is sung. (“I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light/I want you to know that I'm all yours/You and me, we're the same force/I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light/I want you to know that I'm all yours/You and me run the same course/I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light.”)
 
                    She says he’s a good person. He has to believe it. He’s helped her in so many ways. She’s the person she is because of him. He’s a positive influence for a lot of people in his life. (“I'm better under your reflection/But did you know, did you know, did you know, know/That's anybody else that's met ya/It's all the same, all the same, all the same glow.”)
 
                    The pre-chorus is sung again.
 
                    An extended chorus is sung. (“I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light/I want you to know that I'm all yours/You and me, we're the same force/I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light/I want you to know that I'm all yours/You and me run the same course/You and me run the same course.”)
 
                    The synths get proactive, providing hope that a bigger change will come.
 
                    An edited chorus ends the single. (“I want you to know that it's our time/You and me bleed the same light/I want you to know that I'm all yours/You and me run the same course.”)
 
                   Gomez exerts some pressure to make her point. Someone has to make a move. Otherwise, they will be stuck in the same place. She has an authority to her voice that lead the conversation but leave enough room for choice.
         
          Zedd’s delicate arrangement, unfortunately, is too scared. It stays right where it is, frail and repeating the same patterns over and over. It is however, the most well-written of his hits. “The storms have an eye/tell me your cover tonight” is both literal and metaphorical. It visually raises the stakes.
 
                   The complacent “I Want You To Know” has one main weak spot: the arrangement. Zedd has to try to challenge himself or risk becoming irrelevant.