Every week, a different FADER editor compiles a playlist to highlight a new release and give you a guide to that artist’s web of influences and peers. These Staff Selects live in our Spotify app, alongside GEN Fs from our archives and playlists for each issue. This week, it's Deidre Dyer on Cuffing Season.
Cuffing Season might very well be the Olympics of dating, a time of year that leads to competing, judging and comparing possible mates. As the thermostat rose this past spring, everyone shed their serious feelings for the fun and frivolity of easy summer loving. Now with autumn upon us, its time to narrow down all the random summer hook-ups to a single, suitable partner for consistent cuddle sessions throughout the winter months. One great cuffing soundtrack is Jessie Ware's emotive and stellar debut, Devotion. The album arrived in late August, perfectly timed for the seasonal transition with breezy jams like "Sweet Talk," where she coos about the cloying words that tugs at her heart strings, to the intimate ballads like the title track, which seeks a deeper connection, asking, You say you want to love/ Do you want it enough? The masses seem equally moved by Ware's emotionally bare album; the top comment on "Sweet Talk"'s YouTube page sums it up eloquently: "This is the closest thing I can get to sex without a girlfriend." In the spirit of Cuffing Season, I pulled together a playlist of songs that chart emotions from the first flutters of the heart to game-kicking, sealing the deal and everything in between. The final number proclaims the underlying desire of the entire Cuffing Season: Let's Chill / Let's settle down/That's what I wanna do/ Just me and you. Here's to a snuggle-filled, cozy winter.
