Marshmello, Halsey - Be Kind (Surf Mesa Remix)

This remix does the one thing a good Be Kind rework needed to do, which is get out of Halsey’s way. Surf Mesa takes the 2020 Marshmello and Halsey single and slows the urgency out of it, trading the radio bounce for something hazier and further underwater. The vocal gets stretched and reverbed until Halsey sounds like she’s singing from the bottom of a pool, and the melancholy always lurking in the lyric finally gets room to breathe. Surf Mesa built a name on making pop feel weightless, and he applies that same trick to a song most people had filed away years ago. The drop, if you can even call it that, is more of a swell that lifts the whole thing a few inches off the floor before setting it back down. The original never stuck with me; this version made me hear the actual song hiding inside it. Turns out kindness sounds better when you can’t quite make out the words.

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