Paris

The Chainsmokers at their most self-mythologizing, and — despite themselves — genuinely evocative. The production is muted and mid-heavy: a bassy, slightly muddy pulse, guitar-shaped synths, a drop built from a wordless vocal chop that functions as a sigh rather than an explosion. Drew Taggart's vocal is thin and processed, more texture than instrument, which suits a lyric about two people who are more interested in the aesthetics of their damage than in fixing it. The narrative is deliberately hazy — hiding out in a city, being written about, "if we go down, then we go down together" — an image of young, moneyed self-destruction that the song neither endorses nor critiques, just photographs. Paris here is not a place but an alibi. Coming off "Closer" in 2017, this was the group at commercial peak and critical nadir, and the track is a fair document of that: emotionally shallow, atmospherically precise, impossible to shake. It belongs to nighttime driving with someone you're not sure about, or to a party's back bedroom, or to the specific nostalgia of listening back years later and recognizing exactly who you were when you loved it.