DJ Cassidy reins in pop set pieces for latest single with Grace and Lil Yachty.

By now, everybody knows the standard set pieces of pop music and they’re starting to become ineffective. Everyone expects the subdued introduction, the crescendo hook and the pace-accelerating guest rap to make an appearance in some form or another. That’s what makes the latest offering from DJ Cassidy so worthwhile. As he teams up with Grace and Lil Yachty, he sets up expectations just to wonderfully defy them.

Honor should play like any other pop song you’ve heard in the last year or so. Grace sets up the track perfectly with her very typically pop vocal and delivers everything from tone to expression in a conventional fashion, deviating very little from what is expected of every popstar in the modern world. It’s a consistently strong and melodic vocal, if a bit bland. But then DJ Cassidy himself decides to switch things up by refusing to bring the instrumentation out as he should; sure, it peaks for a chorus but it remains restrained and subdued from start to finish. It dulls its own initial impact and, in doing so, becomes even more impactful. Lil Yachty’s appearance only reinforces this, with a guest rap delivered with his trademark lack of convention.

The video itself is equally subversive, showcasing the typical rap/pop style of scantily clad women dancing around the main performance, but with a heightened level of disinterest from everybody involved. It reaches a point where semi-nudity is the norm and becomes less significant than the monochrome outfit choices of the artists. The end result is an all-round good pop single that reevaluates what makes a good pop song/video.