Rhye‘s original version of “Open” was like the most comforting aural orgasm to come out last year. It was like satin sheets dripping with afterglow wrapped around your eardrums and cooed a set of breathless, sweet nothings into your mind. That was especially true if you watched the softcore video that accompanied the track.

Still, it all felt a little suffocating to me. Like the entry into the intimacy of the singer’s bedroom hadn’t produced the intended sweetness he’d desired, but instead straddled the line into the effusively maudlin. Maybe I’m cold like that, but I love Ryan Hemsworth’s expansive version for taking the song out of the boudoir.

Ryan Hemsworth’s rendition feels like a saucy tango through the nighttime streets of an urban center. Capitalizing on the tension of the song, his edits accentuate the longing, but punctuate it with a sense of desperate worry—like at any moment a stoplight, an unexpected bit of traffic, or a drunken wrong turn could thwart your sexy tete-a-tete in the making. By expanding the world the song can take place in, the mawkish nature of the original track is resolved and gives the track a very modern romance feel with a future sound.
 

 

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