What Your Favourite "Drunk In Love" Remix Says About You

When I kneel down to the earth’s floor and press my face against it hoping to feel something like the warmth of the core, I am tiny, and see ants come out of holes, or birds land near me for an instant, or people step over me like I’m a garbage, or stars shining like sky freckles. But I know that the vast bits of things down there and right here and up above us are all bound by the unavoidable fact that we love Beyoncé, and that gives me—during these cold winter days—the comfort of ten sweaters. Monoculture has been dead and gone for so long, so it’s nice to just have this one hotel-soap sized thing that threads through me and you and them and all of us.

Beyoncé is just sort of it; the God particle; the decisive element. If Carl Sagan had seen Beyoncé, his wife would surely wonder why he was being so quiet on the car ride home from dinner, not knowing that he was simply “rethinking some stuff.” And I can finally breathe easy knowing that we aren’t all just floating untethered in this melting pot of sights, sounds, media and things. That this fractured cultural petri dish is actually sort of bound by one simple thing, and it’s more than simply an unjustified love of Herschel backpacks, and that’s nice at least for now.

I’m sobbing, so I’m going to try and get through this and tell you that, as far as “Drunk In Love” goes, it seems to have joined the ranks of “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” and “A Milli” as both certifiable mall music and hood anthem. And much like “A Milli”, we’re seeing remixes come out of every earthly crevasse anytime there is a moment of pause. How do we even begin to parcel through the stacks on stacks of “Drunk In Love” remixes? Much like the weathered belongings of a dead aunt you barely cared about, there is a lot to go through here and maybe very little of worth. We may never see a DatPiff exclusive collecting the best ones, but no matter, since I’m here to play Hitch and explain just what your favourite “Drunk In Love” remix says about you, and how to find the best fit. “Drunk In Love” remixes are a lot like snowflakes or genocides—each one unique; no two alike.

The Weeknd - Drunk In Love

The Weeknd's remix of “Drunk In Love” is the only one on this list that would be ideal for someone who is literally drunk and in love. Considering that there is nothing The Weeknd loves more than bemoaning the pains of love while on some sort of inebriant, there is a very good chance that you’re playing this on the rooftop of Le Bein “looking for shooting stars and smoking angel dust with [your] friends.”

This is the ideal remix for an Asian stoner from Los Angeles who wears a lot of Brandi Melville, or for the crackhead currently penny pinching on a urine-soaked street corner. As Pitchfork probably said at some point, The Weeknd is an important artist precisely because he can bring these two highly sought-after demographics together.

There was most likely a summer in the mid-2000s where you were in the same room as a line of cocaine, and you probably spent the entire following week talking about how “dead” coke is. This is fair; cocaine does seem passé, but that very high you got from the coke simply being in the room—the one that tapped into that same pocket of disgruntled energy that made you want to shave the side of your head or tell your stepdad to go fuck himself? That’s this. Think of The Weeknd’s remix as the perfect soundtrack for a more fun and flirty remake of Monster’s Ball.

Listen if you: had the poster for Requiem For A Dream on your bedroom wall, or went HAM on your MySpace coding, but have all but forgotten how to do even a droplet of backend stuff.

Kanye West - Drunk In Love

If you’re a diehard fan of the Kanye West remix of “Drunk In Love” then you are likely the type of person who always makes a point of specifying that you actually “graduated in December” and are “just walking in May.” Considering that this is the only official remix of the bunch (with a video apparently on the way), you’re definitely straight laced, but you’ve also had your “bad kitty” moments where you’ve looked in the mirror, flicked your tongue like the snake from Tropico and told yourself that “today—today will be the day that’s different, where I get do some wrong things the right way.”

I feel you! Easier said then done though, so hearing the strangely hypersexual ramblings of a definitively non-sexual rapper is probably the closest you’ll be get to being bad for the moment. Kanye’s “Drunk In Love” is for those that are carefully and closely put together. Those that don’t colour outside the lines too much, that get giddy in their downstairs giggle bits, but still take pride in something akin to ritual. I have a feeling you probably LOVED Her.

Listen if you: love Bret Easton Ellis, feel bad for Lindsay Lohan and love reminding people that “regardless of what you think of country music, they are amazing storytellers.”

Diplo - drunk n luv

The Diplo remix of “Drunk In Love” was one of those inevitabilities I knew was coming the second I realized the Deep Impact monsoon of remixes we were in the centre of. If you’re vibing hardest to the Diplo mix, chances are you’ve been a POW in a San Diego frat house for the last two weeks, and this song has worked its Stockholm charm on you (rap game, those girls from Cleveland). We out here, but you literally down there, shoeless next to the radiator, surrounded by beer pong cups of yesteryear. Help is on its way, but until then just ease your back against the exposed brick and let Diplo’s erotic powerdrills work their wonder while you wonder to yourself, “why is this happening to me” in that soft, sweet way you do.

You love tribal print; you probably have two different aunts, both named Denise; you’re a big fan of the Hangover films, but always refer to them as “The Hangover Trilogy”; your closet is predominantly graphic wife beaters; you’re really nice to your mom; you have a defined jawline; you have a friend who spells her name “Meghan.” You are obsessed with 1990s Nickelodeon nostalgia.

Listen if you: tend to walk into a party with a group of friends, disband pretty much immediately, and then spend the rest of the night pointing at each other across the room. Are you guys even friends?

Future - Drunk In Love

If your go-to rendition of “Drunk In Love” is this one—the first one out the block before the tsunami of remixes, may I add—then you’re either (1) me (2) Ciara at gun point (3) a literal ghost considering suing Future for sampling your other-worldly moans without due diligence (pitching “Ghost Lawyer” to A&E immediately). My favourite line in this remix is, without even a single moment’s hesitation, “One thing I remember/there beautiful body/off in someone club.” This is not misspelled; Future’s non-terrestrial ass mumbles are in rare form here, so I’m going to say that this remix is probably for anyone out there still fucking with Ouija, and with a cursory interest in the mythology of Charmed.

I never thought I would say that lovers of the dark arts and those that have survived a stroke would have much in common, but your tastes have finally aligned here, and I’m more than happy to play Hitch and set up a goth girl and a slanted-face dreamboat on a date, blasting this song via Beats Pill. I don’t promise you an enjoyable dinner, as this song is less than two-and-a-half minutes and bound to play approximately 800 times over, but this is the way of things and you’ll understand why it had to be this way soon enough.

Listen if you: are a big I Am Sam fan, or if you’ve finally accepted Future as your lord and savior (because, SAME).

Watch The Duck ft. T.I. - Drunk In Love (Trap Remix)

I’m tempted to say that this remix is literally for everyone else because I have no categorical idea how to parlay my Hitch-level intuitiveness to match the perfect person up with this cacophony of Sahara-Tent-Meets-Southern-Hospitality. Yet I refuse to be largely defeated by this thing. So let’s say that if you find your taste level nearing this song’s orbit, you’re the type of kitten who thinks everyone with a slight gap tooth might be Bauuer.

I love you so don’t take it personally when I say that this is a remix that attracts someone who loves raising the roof, has been to Benihana fairly recently and maybe owns a Ford Focus? You might be someone who sips on LSD-infused tea for daily micro-trips and binge watched the new season Arrested Development in like, what, 3 hours somehow? I often can’t with you, but I won’t untether myself from your strange sense of self as I am strangely in awe of that kind of self-assured ignorance. Only the most batshit crazy confident person would see an EDM-Trap song featuring T.I. and think “yeah, definitely.” I am with you even though you are forever on your own.

Listen if you: spent many a sleepless night on YouTube adding ukulele covers of “TiK ToK” to your favourites, or if you have a pretty good relationship with you father built on the bedrock of being either just like him or like the “son he never had.”

James Blake - Drunk In Love

You are pretending to have never even heard of “Drunk In Love” and you are honestly garbage. I am unable to with you.

Listen if you: use “Read” receipts on iMessage

Rod B is, for better or worse, a writer living in New York . Find him on Twitter @RodB.