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Hear Miguel Croon Sweet Nothings in ‘Girls’ Come-on ‘Simplethings’

Miguel, "Simplethings," 'Girls'

Oh, sure, Miguel might seem like an R&B avant-gardeist, a 2014 Grammy nominee-slash-presenter, a futuristic cosmopolitan who knows how to romance Janelle Monáe under the stars backed by a quasi-Pixies riff. You might understandably be worried he’s out of your league. Don’t be. Let the “Adorn” man offer reassurance: He really wants someone, well, just … like … you. Crucially, though, on Miguel’s seductive new slow jam from HBO’s Girls, he makes this sentiment more a cry of youthful passion than a mere pick-up line.

“Simplethings,” from Girls Volume 2: All Adventurous Women Do…, sets Miguel’s pleadings — “I just want the simple things / I just want you” — to heavily distorted, spaced-out guitar and lets his effects-swathed voice rise from a pleading murmur to a desperate howl and back again. It helps, too, that the song is framed as a conversation between two lovers. Smoking buddies, at that: Imagine Charli XCX and Danny Brown’s “What I Like” before the romance became a happy routine, or right at the moment when it all looked like it was about to fray. Miguel does simple things here, but he does them successfully.

Also from the Girls soundtrack, due out February 11, hear Beck’s “Blue Moon,” Cat Power’s “Free (Gigamesh Remix),” Jenny Lewis’ “Completely Not Me,”and Lizzo’s “Paris.”

//www.youtube.com/embed/zYqsNM2XIZ0?feature=player_embedded