“Sick Boy”

As you may have guessed, the new Chainsmokers song has some EDM squelches smuggled into a basic pop backdrop. But it’s more varied, and a little darker, than their usual fare. There are dramatic piano chords, light symphonic touches, and, possibly, castanets. In theory, “Sick Boy” sounds like a turn toward the meaningful—the moment when they stop measuring their dicks and start getting real. In practice, though, the song comes off more like a parody than a parable.

It’s accompanied by the kind of faux-woke sing-rapping that might be too on-the-nose for a “Saturday Night Live” skit. “I’m from the east side of America, where we choose pride over character,” it begins. “I live on the west side of America, where they spin lies into fairy dust.” Is it possible the song is addressing racial politics in America and the cutthroat emptiness of Hollywood? Sure, but it’s clumsy, a morality lecture from a philanderer. And really, who needs the Chainsmokers to deliver op-eds? Those scolding platitudes are quickly abandoned when the song gets sensitive, and asks you not to make fun of it. “How many likes is my life worth?” Andrew Taggart sings, with the vulnerability of someone who reads all of his press, of someone who maybe feels bad about getting famous from a song called “#SELFIE.” But then he pivots to aggression, with a finger wag in his tone. “They call me the sick boy/Easy to say when you don’t take the risk, boy.” It’s a bad-natured, cocksure indictment of the backseat driver, in this case, America itself. But are we lazy and cruel? Gadflies without the mettle to back it up? Or do we just think we deserve better than this? If Chainsmokers really wanted to help out their fellow citizens they’d leave us alone.