"Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is released to give you, you know — it bathes the pleasure centers, basically. I feel like Dopamine comes out when you are longing for something or just the fantasy of something, and that's what a lot of the songs on the album are about. It's kind of like the fantasy of what you wish you had, or that you had and you don't have anymore."
Garrett Borns, NPR, 2015
"10,000 Emerald Pools" is the first track of Michigan indie pop artist BØRNS' debut studio album Dopamine (2015). Borns gained much exposure with the MGMT-esque "Electric Love", which shares the same subject matter with "10,000 Emerald Pools" and countless other pop songs: the heady promises of romantic/sexual attraction. While the title is certainly evocative, the songs' lyrics will probably not strike anyone as being particularly inspired:
'I'll dive in deeper, deeper for youDown to the bottom, 10,000 emerald poolsDown to the bottom, 10,000 emerald poolsUnder waterTime is standing stillYou're the treasureDive down deeperStill, all I need is youYou're all I need to breatheAll I need is you!'
We've all heard these words being sung before - but probably not the way Borns sings them. He's certainly a dynamic and relatively unique vocalist: AllMusic.com's Neil Z. Young notes that his "gorgeous falsetto and breathless delivery add a slinky sexuality to each track". On Dopamine, Borns effortlessly oscillates between emphatic and intense vocal acrobatics and a more generic pop register, while Born To Die producer Emile Haynie and Kanye collaborator Jeff Bhasker's retro-futuristic flourishes allow him to flit from psych-pop to rock to pop to soul to glam rock.
Given his subject matter and somewhat androgynous vocals, it's probably not surprising that BØRNS has been described as the "male Zella Day" and a 'better Lana Del Rey'. With a few more years under his belt and many more pages in his songbook, I'm confident that he'll eventually be sending shockwaves that will flood people's brains with all kinds of neurotransmitters (and not just dopamine).
