Soft Spot (song)
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"Soft Spot" (stylised in lowercase) is a liquid drum and bass song, first released independently on 4 June 2021, where it was credited to Piri. After she paid six
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creators to promote the song, the song was used in a video of a creator making a Japanese bench, which caused the song to go viral on that platform. Around this time, the track went viral on
Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
after featuring on the platform's "Fresh Finds" playlist. For this,
EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...
signed her and her producer
Tommy Villiers Thomas George Villiers is an English musician from Saffron Walden. After being introduced to dance music via his brother, he began producing drum and bass tracks and uploading them to SoundCloud. While at the Royal Northern College of Music, he ...
and re-released the track under the name Piri & Tommy Villiers. The song appeared on the pair's 2022 mixtape '' Froge.mp3''. Critical reception for the song was overwhelmingly positive, with ''
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'' comparing Piri's voice with
Ariana Grande Ariana Grande-Butera ( ; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Regarded as a pop icon and an influential figure in popular music, Grande is known for her four-octave vocal range, which extends into the whistle re ...
, ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
'' listing it as the fifty-ninth best dance song of all time, and ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' noting that the song was "right up there with
PinkPantheress Victoria Beverley Walker (born 19 April 2001), known professionally as PinkPantheress, is a British singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her music is noted for its various samples and diaristic lyrics. Born in Bath, Somerset, and raised ...
and, er, sea shanties" as one of
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’s "biggest hits". In addition, the song spent a week on the
UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart The UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart and the UK Independent Album Breakers Chart are music charts based on UK sales of singles and albums released on independent record labels by musical artists who have never made the UK top 40. It is compi ...
at No. 20 and
Charli XCX Charlotte Emma Aitchison (born 2 August 1992), known professionally as Charli XCX, is a British singer and songwriter. She began posting songs on Myspace in 2008 before entering the London rave scene. Signing a recording contract with Asylum Re ...
, PinkPantheress,
Wet Leg Wet Leg are an English indie rock band from the Isle of Wight, England, founded in 2019 by Rhian Teasdale (vocals, guitar) and Hester Chambers (guitar). The band also includes Josh Mobaraki (guitar, keyboards), Ellis Durand (bass) and Henry Ho ...
, and Saint Etienne are fans of the song.


Background

In 2020, just before the second United Kingdom COVID-19 lockdown, Piri matched on
Tinder Tinder is easily Combustibility and flammability, combustible material used to Firemaking, start a fire. Tinder is a finely divided, open material which will begin to glow under a shower of sparks. Air is gently wafted over the glowing tinder unt ...
with
Tommy Villiers Thomas George Villiers is an English musician from Saffron Walden. After being introduced to dance music via his brother, he began producing drum and bass tracks and uploading them to SoundCloud. While at the Royal Northern College of Music, he ...
, a member of the band
Porij Porij are an English four-piece band formed in Manchester in 2019 after meeting at the Royal Northern College of Music. At the time, the band consisted of Tommy Villiers, Tom Donaldson, James Middleton, and Scout Moore. Villiers and Donaldson l ...
. A couple of weeks later, one of the band's photographers retweeted one of their photo shoots, prompting her to find his
Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
account and ask him out. Piri wrote "Soft Spot", a liquid drum and bass song with
loon Loons (North American English) or divers (British English, British / Irish English) are a group of aquatic birds found in much of North America and northern Eurasia. All living species of loons are members of the genus ''Gavia'', family (biolog ...
birds on it, about feeling powerless to Villiers and about feeling optimistic that their relationship would work out.
PinkPantheress Victoria Beverley Walker (born 19 April 2001), known professionally as PinkPantheress, is a British singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her music is noted for its various samples and diaristic lyrics. Born in Bath, Somerset, and raised ...
was a big inspiration for the record; Piri used a December 2021 ''
NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...
'' article to state that the former had direct messaged the pair to tell them the song's "beat goes stupid".


Promotion and release

The track was released on 4 June. Piri told Unity Radio in October 2021 that she paid six
TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
creators £20 to use the song in one of their videos, and took out adverts on
Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
and TikTok. The song went viral on TikTok after being featured in a video of a creator making a Japanese bench, which acquired 1,000,000 views, and eventually appeared in over 130,000 videos including those for pregnancy cravings, laminate floor fitting, gym workout montages, Korean
scrambled egg Scrambled eggs is a dish made from eggs (usually chicken eggs), where the whites and yolks have been stirred, whipped, or beaten together (typically with salt, butter or oil, and sometimes water or milk, or other ingredients), then heated so ...
s, and
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advice. The song also went viral on
Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
after being featured on its "Fresh Finds" playlist. For this,
EMI EMI Group Limited (formerly EMI Group plc until 2007; originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At t ...
signed them and re-released the track. EMI also released an official remix from
MJ Cole Matthew James Firth Coleman, better known by his stage name MJ Cole, is an English garage DJ, recording artist, record producer and remixer. Career Born in London, in his youth, Cole was classically trained on the oboe and piano, and won sch ...
, who provided the remix after Piri and Villiers sent a long list of suggested artists to their label, including bigger artists such as Cole, without expecting a response.


Reception

"Soft Spot" spent a week on the
UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart The UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart and the UK Independent Album Breakers Chart are music charts based on UK sales of singles and albums released on independent record labels by musical artists who have never made the UK top 40. It is compi ...
, at No. 20. Rani Boyer wrote for Undergroundunderdogs.com that the song was "as sweet as it is addictive" and for ''
Pigeons & Planes Complex Networks is an American media and entertainment company for youth culture, based in New York City. It was founded as a bi-monthly magazine, ''Complex'', by fashion designer Marc Eckō. Complex Networks reports on popular and emerging tr ...
'' that the song was "infectious". Tobi, a reviewer for
Tom Robinson Living people Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits " Glad to Be Gay", " 2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with hi ...
's blog Freshonthenet.co.uk, noted that the song "dares you not to dance" and
Charli XCX Charlotte Emma Aitchison (born 2 August 1992), known professionally as Charli XCX, is a British singer and songwriter. She began posting songs on Myspace in 2008 before entering the London rave scene. Signing a recording contract with Asylum Re ...
used a 24 August 2021 edition of
BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...
's ''Future Sounds'' to air it and state that she ran to it at the gym. Reviewing subsequent single " Beachin", Dan Cairns of ''
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
'' noted that the song's "mix of skittering drum’n’bass and nostalgia-infused pop immediacy" stuck "like glue", while Thomas Smith of ''NME'' wrote in May 2022 that the song was "right up there with
PinkPantheress Victoria Beverley Walker (born 19 April 2001), known professionally as PinkPantheress, is a British singer, songwriter, and record producer. Her music is noted for its various samples and diaristic lyrics. Born in Bath, Somerset, and raised ...
and, er, sea shanties as one of [
TikTok TikTok, known in mainland China and Hong Kong as Douyin (), is a social media and Short-form content, short-form online video platform owned by Chinese Internet company ByteDance. It hosts user-submitted videos, which may range in duration f ...
]’s biggest hits". Writing for a July 2022 Rolling Stone (magazine), ''Rolling Stone'' listicle that named the track as the fifty-ninth greatest dance song of all time, Michelangelo Matos called it a "twee starburst of liquid drum-and-bass". In March 2023,
Wet Leg Wet Leg are an English indie rock band from the Isle of Wight, England, founded in 2019 by Rhian Teasdale (vocals, guitar) and Hester Chambers (guitar). The band also includes Josh Mobaraki (guitar, keyboards), Ellis Durand (bass) and Henry Ho ...
named it one of five songs that had soundtracked their year and the band's Rhian Teasdale noted that it took them back to when they were shooting their video for " Ur Mum", in which Villiers played the anti-hero. Piri's voice came in for particular praise. Freshonthenet.co.uk noted that "Piri's voice dances in compelling vocal stack withechoes cascading left/right, creating depth and ear candy", and noted that her "pop-sweet topline teas dand contrast dagainst the weight of the production". ''Pitchfork'''s Cat Zhang, who particularly enjoyed the way she "sigh d the chorus, described her voice as "light and hazy" and "skim
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over the fast-paced melody in the verses in a way that resembles
Ariana Grande Ariana Grande-Butera ( ; born June 26, 1993) is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Regarded as a pop icon and an influential figure in popular music, Grande is known for her four-octave vocal range, which extends into the whistle re ...
", while Saint Etienne, who stated that it was one of their favourite tracks of 2021, wrote that Piri's voice sounded "like Shampoo". Later reviews complimented the song's percussion.
Alexis Petridis Alexis Petridis (born 13 September 1971) is an English journalist. He is the head Rock music, rock and pop music critic for ''The Guardian'', and a regular contributor for ''GQ''. In addition to his music journalism for the paper, he has written ...
reviewed a November 2022 Froge.tour gig for ''The Guardian'' and wrote that "in its live incarnation at least", the track's breaks were "surprisingly tough", while Alex Rigotti of ''
Gigwise ''Gigwise'' is a British online music news site featuring music news, photos, album reviews, music festivals, concert tickets and video content. Founded in June 2001, the site is based in London, England. History Gigwise was launched in 2001 in ...
'' stated that the Scala gig of that tour ended "with a genuinely incredible breakbeat" and wished that it "went on for way longer than it did".


Music video

A music video was released on 4 June 2021, which features Piri singing, dancing, and
pole dancing Pole dance combines dance and acrobatics centered around a vertical pole. This performance art form takes place not only in strip club, gentleman's clubs as a form of erotic dance, but also as a mainstream form of fitness, practiced in gyms and ...
. She used an October 2021 ''Reform Radio'' interview to note that she had bought a
projector A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer type ...
especially for the occasion and that she filmed herself performing against the bedroom wall of the student house she was living in at the time and to "trippy liquid visuals" she had found on
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. She also stated that she had edited the video herself.


Track listing

Digital single #"Soft Spot" (Piri) – 3:39 MJ Cole remix #"Soft Spot" (
MJ Cole Matthew James Firth Coleman, better known by his stage name MJ Cole, is an English garage DJ, recording artist, record producer and remixer. Career Born in London, in his youth, Cole was classically trained on the oboe and piano, and won sch ...
remix) – 3:51 #"Soft Spot" (Piri & Tommy Villiers) – 3:43


Personnel and credits

Personnel *Piri – vocals *Tommy Villiers – production, mastering, mixing


Charts


Release history


References

{{Piri 2021 songs 2021 singles Piri & Tommy songs