Soft Spot (song)

"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 TikTokers 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; this, as well as virality on Spotify caused by it featuring on the platform's "Fresh Finds" playlist, prompted EMI to sign her and her producer Tommy Villiers, and re-release the track under the name Piri & Tommy Villiers. The song appeared on the pair's 21 October 2022 mixtape Froge.mp3.

Critical reception for the song was overwhelmingly positive, with Pitchfork comparing Piri's voice with Ariana Grande, Rolling Stone listing it as the fifty-ninth best dance song of all time, and NME noting that the song was "right up there with PinkPantheress and, er, sea shanties as one of [ TikTok]’s biggest hits". In addition, the song spent a week on the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart at No. 20, and Charli XCX, PinkPantheress, and Wet Leg are fans of the song.

Background
Piri met Tommy Villiers, a member of Porij and See Thru Hands, in 2020, after matching on Tinder, finding his band on Twitter, finding his Instagram account, and asking him if she could "shoot [her] shot", in that order. She released a Villiers-produced single "It's a Match" on 12 March 2021 via DistroKid, and then on 4 June released "Soft Spot", also via DistroKid, a liquid drum and bass song with loon birds on it. She told 1883 in September 2021 that she wrote the song about "feeling completely powerless to the person of your affections, but still being almost foolishly optimistic that it will all work out", and about Villiers. According to a September 2022 interview for Apple Music, the song was "made across two student houses", and its vocals were recorded under a duvet. PinkPantheress was a big inspiration for the record; Piri used a December 2021 NME article to state that the former had direct messaged the pair to tell them the song's "beat goes stupid".

Promotion and release
Piri told Unity Radio in October 2021 that she paid six TikTok creators £20 to use the song in one of their videos, and took out adverts on Instagram 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 eggs, and dysmenorrhea advice. The song also went viral on Spotify after being featured on its "Fresh Finds" playlist. For this, EMI signed them, and re-released "Soft Spot" on 13 September 2021 under the name Piri & Tommy Villiers. EMI also released an official remix from MJ Cole, 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 expectation of a response; his version was released on 15 October 2021. Cole would later be namechecked in Piri & Tommy's "Can We" from froge.mp3, and he and the pair would later release "Feel It" on 20 January 2023, by which time Piri and Villiers had split up.

Reception
"Soft Spot" spent a week on the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart, at No. 20. Pigeons & Planes described it as "infectious", while DIY described it as "effortlessly catchy", The Guardian described it as "feathery", and Undergroundunderdogs.com called it "as sweet as it is addictive". Charli XCX used a 24 August 2021 edition of BBC Radio 1's Future Sounds to air it and noted that "it goes so hard" and that she "sometimes ... run[s] to [it] at the gym", while Tom Robinson's blog Freshonthenet.co.uk noted that it "dares you not to dance". Reviewing subsequent single "Beachin", Dan Cairns of The Sunday Times noted that the song's "mix of skittering drum’n’bass and nostalgia-infused pop immediacy" stuck "like glue".

A May 2022 NME article described it as "right up there with PinkPantheress and, er, sea shanties as one of [ TikTok]’s biggest hits", while a 25 July 2022 Rolling Stone listicle called it a "twee starburst of liquid drum-and-bass" and named it as the fifty-ninth greatest dance song of all time and a DORK article published the same day noted that its "genuine naivety and optimism ... prove[d] to be just the icing on the cake of future hits". In March 2023, Wet Leg 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, with Pitchfork describing her voice as "light and hazy" and "skim[ming] over the fast-paced melody in the verses in a way that resembles Ariana Grande", and particularly enjoying the way she "sigh[ed]" the "I can't help it ... you're in my Soft Spot" chorus, while Freshonthenet.co.uk noted that "Piri's voice dances in compelling vocal stack[, with] echoes cascading left/right, creating depth and ear candy", and noted that her "pop-sweet topline teas[ed] and contrast[ed] against the weight of the production".

Later reviews complimented the song's percussion, with a November 2022 The Guardian review finding that "in its live incarnation at least, the breaks on big hit Soft Spot [we]re surprisingly tough", while a Gigwise review of a Scala performance later that month noted that their performance of "Soft Spot" "end[ed] with a genuinely incredible breakbeat that [the reviewer] wish[ed] went on for way longer than it did".

Music videos and other media
A music video was released on 4 June 2021, which features Piri singing, dancing, and pole dancing; she used a 27 October 2021 Reform Radio interview to note that she had bought a projector especially for the occasion, 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 YouTube, and that she had edited the video herself. On 27 October 2022, they performed a live acoustic version on Reform Radio, and on 13 January 2022, they released a video to YouTube of them performing an acoustic version of the song. The song was played on Sunday Brunch on 21 November 2021, and on 21 October 2022, the song appeared on Piri & Tommy's mixtape, froge.mp3. On 12 January 2023, Piri & Tommy performed the song on Radio 1's Sound Of..., and on 27 May 2023, Piri performed the song at Radio 1 Big Weekend.

Track listing
Digital single
 * 1) "Soft Spot" (Piri) – 3:39

MJ Cole remix
 * 1) "Soft Spot" (MJ Cole remix) – 3:51
 * 2) "Soft Spot" (Piri & Tommy Villiers) – 3:43

Personnel and credits
Recording locations
 * Piri & Villiers' student houses

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