These days, good disco pop doesn’t need much: a tidy four-on-the-floor, some funky guitar, and jazzy synths. And wonderful disco pop can match that sound with blissful chants that channel love, lust, or freedom. However the
best disco pop — Whitney, Robyn, Dua, Carly — warps the sound’s very essence. Classics like “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “Dancing on My Own” lyrically pull from our most deepest fears: that no one will love us, that we’ll habitually be alone. That you don’t realize how painfully sad the words are is the complete point. “Kissing Strangers” fits this mold, an infectious dance-floor number wherein
Vetta Borne regrets a breakup that she initiated. “I swear I really loved her,” she mourns, although maybe she’s smiling the complete time; for all of the shame and hurt, the sound refuses to let you feel it. —
Terron Moore