Where sorrow is sculpted
To Be Honest that comes not as a blast but as a gentle, graceful descent. Feeling less like a pop song and more like a reckoning in slow motion, the first single from Christine and the Queens’ PARANOÏA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE cycle feels. Based on spectral synths and a heartbeat-paced rhythm, the song hangs in an odd liminal place, part devotional, part confessional. It does not ask for openness. It slides across it.
Now completely absorbed in his search of identity outside binaries, Chris taps something strongly theatrical in this performance. not in the way of excess but rather in emotional staging. Words tumbling like pieces from a half-read journal resound weakly but strongly. Though “It’s true that I sometimes cry” is not lyrical poetry written for majesty, it is disarmingly straight-forward, disturbing in its closeness. This is not vulnerability as performance. Exposure is its framework.
The show negotiates a tight line between cosmic magnificence and cool control. Synths shimmer with a sort of divine detachment; the beat pulses like a dying signal trying to remain constant. Co-produced by Mike Dean, best known for his collaborations with Kanye West and Frank Ocean, the song explores texture and quiet. Built more on hint than statement, it is a scene of faith and conflict. Chris does not yell. He turns about. He holds off. He relies on the quiet.
It feels like yearning for something unattainable, both lyrically and musically. The March 2023 single sounds analogous to a ballad, sharing tropes of other introspective, intentional, beloved originals in his discography.
(Mitch Mosk, Atwood Magazine, 2023)
Striking is how To Be Honest presents itself as both very personal and strangely universal. Chris has always investigated identity as flux from Chaleur Humaine to Chris, and now in this more magical, angelic phase. This song seems like a turning point, a subdued declaration that being broken does not negate beauty and that seeking is itself a form of response. It doesn’t attempt to fix anything. It resides with the paradox.
At a period when pop frequently travels fast, strives high, and resolves, To Be Sincere stands still. It pays attention inward. It lingers in half-light. It brings us back to the most extreme act an artist can do, which is to experience something completely and leave room for the listener to feel it too rather than create something new.
