I just have one question: Can Charlie Puth make a song that’s not a bop? The answer is no, in case you’re wondering. Puth’s latest release, “Girlfriend,” is a retro-feeling bright jam that would feel at home at a summer dance party in years gone by. “Girlfriend” is heavy in synth and falsetto, two things that Puth is just so good at and two things that make this song so fun and catchy.
Puth collaborated with J Kash for this track, whom he’d previously worked with on hits like “Attention” and “The Way I Am.” It’s Puth’s first solo single of 2020, though he previously collaborated with Lennon Stella for the song “Summer Feelings.” The 28-year-old singer tweeted on release day, June 25, that he wrote this song while on tour, on planes and buses. Considering he’s been teasing the song on social media for months now, it’s not surprising that it’s been on his brain for a while.
I made this song when I was on tour. In planes and busses. I recorded the bridge vocals 10 min before I went on stage one time. I recorded the whole thing with an SM7 microphone. Wrote the words with Kash driving around Studio City…
— Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) June 25, 2020
In “Girlfriend,” Puth makes his intentions clear, he just wants a girlfriend! With lines like, “If I was your boyfriend, I / I’d be givin’ you all my time / Not just a little, just a little / All night long” and the ever-present chorus asking if you’ll be his girlfriend. Puth said in a press release that music is his best form of communication because sometimes he just doesn’t know what to say in conversation.
“I am very bad at communicating, so most of the time, I just express my feelings in my music and ‘Girlfriend’ is an example of that,” he said in the press release. “The song is about being persistent and letting someone know that your feelings for them aren’t going to just go away. But rather, they’re always going to be there, and you can’t sleep another night until you have that person by your side every day. But it’s really intense to say all that out loud, so I just put it in a song to make it a little easier for myself.”
You’ll want to listen to this song all summer long and beyond because it’s ideal for sweaty nights and turning the lights down low to jam. Puth’s swoon-worthy vocals will no doubt make anyone fall in love and wholeheartedly commit to being his girlfriend.