User:Paparazzzi/I Love Me

"I Love Me" is a song performed by American singer Demi Lovato, released on digital and streaming platforms on March 6, 2020, as the lead single from her upcoming seventh studio album. It was written by Lovato alongside Anne-Marie, Jennifer Decilveo, Sean Douglas, Alex Niceforo, Keith Sorrells and Warren "Oak" Felder and produced by the latter three. It is an upbeat pop and R&B song whose lyrics talk about loving oneself. It received positive reviews by critics, with many of them deeming it as a "self-love" anthem.

A music video for "I Love Me" was directed by Hannah Lux Davis and filmed in New York City. It premiered on March 6, 2020, and depicts the singer walking across a street with multiple references of moments in her career and personal life.

Background and release
"I Love Me" was written by Demi Lovato alongside Anne-Marie, Jennifer Decilveo, Sean Douglas, Alex Niceforo, Keith Sorrells and Warren "Oak" Felder and produced by the latter three. According to Anne-Marie, she co-wrote the song with other songwriters in 2019 before Lovato heard it and recorded it. During an interview with Ellen DeGeneres, Lovato described the track as "fun and lighthearted" that had a "positive, upbeat message".

Demi Lovato was interviewed during the September 2019 Teen Vogue summit, where she said that she would be releasing new music "in due time". In January 2020, she released "Anyone", her first single since suffering an overdose in July 2018, and performed it at the 62nd Grammy Awards. The following month, Lovato performed the national anthem of the United States at the Super Bowl LIV. On March 2, 2020, she announced through her Instagram that her upcoming new single "I Love Me" would be released four days later, attaching the cover art on the post. The artwork is a blurry picture of Lovato wearing a red jacket on a city street with the title of the single appearing on the left upper corner. Lovato had previously used the title of the single as a hashtag for another Instagram picture on 24 February. "I Love Me" was finally released on March 6, 2020, on both digital and streaming platforms, as the lead single from her upcoming seventh studio album.

Composition
"I Love Me" is an upbeat pop and R&B song,  with a length of three minutes and twenty-three seconds. The verses are composed of a minimalist neo-soul beat, while the chorus feature a drum instrumentation that stops while Lovato sings the line "I wonder when 'I love me' is enough".

In an interview with Apple Music's Hanuman Welch, Lovato said "I Love Me" talked about "loving yourself", adding, "It's an anthem, and it talks about how hard we are on ourselves and this, the negative self-talk. You know, how easily we can listen to that. But when is loving yourself gonna be enough?". During the Ellen DeGeneres Show she explained the title of the song, saying, "We are good by ourselves. We don't need a partner, we don't need, like, substance. We're good." During the first verse, Lovato sings about her past problems with eating disorders and body image, "Can't see what I am, I just see what I'm not / I'm guilty 'bout everything that I eat (every single day)".

Taylor Weatherby of Billboard said the song was about Lovato's "battle with her mental health", as exemplified in the chorus, "Oh, why do I compare myself to everyone?/ And I always got my finger on the self-destruct/ I wonder when I love me is enough". Rania Aniftos of the same magazine described "I Love Me" as a "self-love" and "empowering" song. Marcus Jones of Entertainment Weekly said the track focused on "self-love" and noted it was more upbeat than Lovato's previous single, "Anyone". Kelly Wynne of Newsweek also deemed it as a "ode to self and the powers each person holds as an individual."

Critical reception
Chris Murphy of Vulture deemed "I Love Me" as a "rousing, introspective pop song about self-love and self-doubt".

Music video
A music video for "I Love Me" was directed by Hannah Lux Davis and filmed in New York City. On 5 March 2020, Lovato released on digital platforms a teaser of 30 seconds of the music video for "I Love Me". It was premiered on MTV Live on March 6, 2020, and was later uploaded to YouTube.

Synopsis and interpretation
In the first scene, three versions of Lovato appear in a house, with two of them fighting each other. The other one, referred to as "Zen Demi" by both MTV News' Madeline Roth and Yahoo! Music's Suzy Byrne, is dressed in white and trying to meditate. This scene parallels the line "I'm a black belt when I'm beating up on myself". Wran Graves of Consequence of Sound opined it was "dramatization of depression". Olivia Singh of Insider said the fight was a reference to the singer's "personal battles with her demons" as well as her skills in mixed martial arts.

Later, the singer gets out of the house wearing a red jacket and walking across the fictional "I Love Me St." in New York City, where multiple references to her past appear are shown. While in the street, a blonde woman appears with two daughters dressed in 1990s clothing and taking them to an acting audition. This represents Lovato herself at a young age with her mother Dianna De La Garza and sister Dallas Lovato, with the former tweeting, "I feel like I was looking for an audition address [...] my doppelgänger is beautiful!". Later, a woman wearing a black bodysuit, sunglasses and short hair accompanied by bodyguards is depicted walking in the street. The woman references Lovato herself while promoting her 2015 studio album Confident on the Future Now Tour. In the next scene, Lovato passes by and smiles to a young girl holding a microphone and surrounded by three boys, whose looks and outfits resemble the characters the singer and the Jonas Brothers played on the 2008 Disney Channel movie Camp Rock.

As she keeps on walking, Lovato passes by three men in golden jackets, to whom she smiles and cuts her eyes to. Desiree Murphy of Entertainment Tonight opined the three men were a reference to the Jonas Brothers, with whom Lovato has worked in different acting and musical projects together. On the other hand, Singh wrote the scene represented Lovato "being happy about the good times they shared, but also accepting that they've gone on separate paths". The singer later walks past an ambulance which is assisting a woman on a stretcher, putting her hand on the woman's forehead. This referenced the overdose that she suffered in July 2018. Near the end of the music video, a bride and a groom run across the street, which referenced her former boyfriend Wilmer Valderrama's engagement. The video finishes with Lovato reuniting with two of her real-life friends, rapper Sirah and actor Matthew Scott Montgomery.

It received 5.5 million views on YouTube on its first 24 hours available on the platform.

Credits and personnel
Credits adapted from Tidal.
 * Lead vocals – Demi Lovato
 * Background vocals – Demi Lovato, Jennifer Decilveo, Sean Douglas, Alex Niceforo, Keith Sorrells
 * Songwriting – Demi Lovato, Anne-Marie, Jennifer Decilveo, Sean Douglas, Alex Niceforo, Keith Sorrells, Warren "Oak" Felder
 * Production – Alex Nice, Keith Sorrells, Warren "Oak" Felder
 * Programming – Alex Niceforo, Keith Sorrells, Oak Felder
 * Mastering – Michelle Mancini
 * Engineering – Keith Sorrells
 * Bass guitar – Oak Felder
 * Drums – Alex Niceforo, Keith Sorrells, Oak Felder
 * Keyboards – Keith Sorrells, Oak Felder