Every Love Island Episode is a 45 Minute Pop Music Video This is Important
But also please stop playing so much Khalid
Important note before reading: This newsletter is not for any of you. “Love Island” U.S. premieres in three weeks and this is a plea to the producers to higher me and pay me a lot so I can play Lil Durk and Teyana Taylor’s “Home Body” when the contestants kiss. Please.
Ok so, I have many very serious passions: the moments when YungManny raps in sound effects, Sinbad’s mid 90s red carpet fits, and Pop Smoke saying, “Bitch I’ma thot” on the song of the summer. But my latest passion is watching “Love Island.”
In the UK “Love Island” is a reality TV phenomenon that begins with 11 twentysomethings that look like chiseled and tanned Netflix rom-com wannabes. The show’s contestants say they have normal jobs like a lab scientist or a caterer, but really they’re all just aspiring social media influencers, and it works because after a single episode they all attain six-figure Instagram followers.
The show airs Sunday-Friday for an hour—with a Saturday recap episode—, ideal for people looking to burn away time they will never get back, like me. Taking place inside of a massive Villa—that would be the setting of a Jagged Edge video if it was 2001—on the Spanish island of Mallorca. Every couple of days they have a ceremony called dumpings in which the gender that has the numbers disadvantage one by one selects who they want to couple up with and the last person standing exits the villa. And almost immediately a new islander or islanders will enter the house—by the end of last season there had been 38 islanders and 49 episodes. At the end of the eight weeks there’s some sort of winner, but nobody gives a fuck, this is about love, and that love getting you IG followers, and oh yeah, every episode is filmed like a low-priority 4K pop music video that doesn’t let you miss a single drip of oil from an ab or lip gloss sparkle.
Bro, watch this:
Last week, while watching the season 5 premiere of “Love Island” in only 68 minutes of runtime 32 songs were played, with music by Billie Eilish, Kygo, Rita Ora, Avicii, and Khalid—between the money Khalid saves on haircuts and his reality tv show checks he’s music’s next billionaire. These never ending music montages take place during scenarios like the islanders getting ready for bed, putting on make up, and rubbing sunscreen on each other’s backs, showing the passage of time on a show in which nothing ever happens.
The real reality tv heads might say to me that this sounds no different than an MTV reality show like “Are You The One.” But in MTV’s case their shows exist for about 10-13 episode seasons and their music choices are used to add color to storylines that lean on arguments and fights. While “Love Island” operates in a tone closer to the subtle nothingness of “Terrace House” so the music choices are there to explain the mood of the villa and often an attempt to use as little actual contestant dialogue as possible.
Some important “Love Island” music choices:
Anytime emotion needs explaining, “Love Island” turns to the latest collab between The Chainsmokers and whatever generic 25 year old bedroom pop singer they’ve recruited.
Throwbacks and covers of throwbacks. “Love Island” doesn’t just play pop music from this era, but they also try to make amends for dumbass tv execs in the past not thinking of shit like this before. This season we’ve heard David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel,” Elton John’s “Are You Ready For Love?,” and a Swedish pop singer named Benjamin Ingrosso flipping Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long” into a bubbly war crime—please put this man in cuffs.
Everybody on “Love Island” wants to be famous but how about they cast an aspiring UK drill rapper who sits by the pool in Nike tech fleece. Though sadly black people that come in shades darker than a Golden State Warriors guard don’t do well on “Love Island.” They’re normally relegated to supportive friend status and hardly get selected. But “Love Island” did give Yewande this season’s best slow-motion music choice to Miguel’s “Adorn.”
The last black dude on “Love Island” got his ass kicked out:
I’m upset. I looked up this english producer Jonas Blue because the “Love Island” music supervisor swears by his outdated 2014 EDM-pop breakdowns. The producer’s “Rise” recently played in an episode and watching the music video I was forced to witness a Nebraskan pop duo named Jack & Jack. This duo looks like they play ultimate frisbee in Mccarren Park on the weekends and I might swing on them in a Starbucks like Lil Uzi did Rich the Kid.
A “Love Island” producer asks the music supervisor how do they get more people under 25 to watch their show. The music supervisor has an epiphany: Let’s play “Timber” by Pitbull and Ke$ha every fucking chance we get.
The rap music selections on “Love Island” needs help, I’m one Dizzee Rascal song away from calling it quits. But they have played Busta Rhymes’ “Break Ya Neck” and Drake’s “God’s Plan” this season.
Last season, a boy named Josh and girl named Georgia were beginning to fall in love. There’s a mid-season twist in the show called “Casa Amor” that sends the boys to a different villa with a new group of girls and leaves the current girls in the main villa with a new group of boys. When the villas reunite each group has a choice to bring back someone from one of the new groups or stay in their current couple. The point is to create a week of paranoia and test the loyalties of these people who’ve known each other for like three weeks. Of course, Josh returns with a new girl and Georgia chooses to stay loyal to Josh. Personally, I was clapping like Raptors fans when KD went down, but it was slightly heartbreaking watching her react like Drake on “Jaded.” Instead of playing that Drake song or maybe some petty ass SZA or Future, they play Camilla Cabello’s “Never Be the Same” and that’s “Love Island” music in a nutshell.