AlunaGeorge + Kreayshawn | Tracks

“You Know You Like It”
AlunaGeorge

In the next column, I subject you to the ear hell. It’s only fair to balance it with one of the best and refreshing acts of the year. AlunaGeorge is singer Aluna Francis and beat geek George Reid. The young London R&B duo has released only a handful of songs, and they’re all perfect. Francis trills like an old jazz singer. Under that girlish voice lies sultry experience. Cutting like a breeze through humidity, “You Know You Like It” is built and paced for summer. It is “Buffalo Stance” by way of the XX, like Lykke Li doing the Dougie at Timbaland’s backyard BBQ. “I’m not a follower,” Francis coos, backing her statement up over a synthesizer’s reverse sighs and the golden chiming of Super Mario gathering coins. “You know you like it but you’re scared of the shame,” the chorus goes. The notion of a guilty pleasure is stupid. Why feel shame for our pleasure? That being said, this is pop music with brains, heart, breath and, yes, a sex drive, too. I’m kind of obsessed.