Close To Love (Gracie Abrams x Rihanna & Calvin Harris)

Another underrated masterpiece, not to brag. When Gracie Abrams released her song “Close To You” in June 2024, I instantly fell in love with the track. However, I could not help but think of Rihanna’s super-mega hit “We Found Love” when I first heard Abrams’ track, as the two are, of course, in the same key, Gb Major (my perfect pitch is an uncontrollable superpower AHHHHHHHH). I hadn’t made a mashup in about three months when I got this idea, but I ultimately said, “Y’know what? Let’s do it.”

The vision I had for this mashup was ‘summer pop party,’ so I used Rihanna and Calvin Harris’ track for the instrumental. I thought about everything that makes “We Found Love” so iconic – and the build up after each chorus to the instrumental breaks is perhaps the most cherished part of the song, in my opinion. So, I added the vocals of Abrams’ repeated refrain (“Close to you, close to you…“) over the first build up, to ultimately drop the beat into the “Close To You” chorus over the already instrumental section of the Rihanna song. This was the first mashup where I truly felt like a DJ (probably because a famous DJ produced “We Found Love”).

I created this mashup on June 26th, 2024, and realized it was getting close to the one year anniversary of “Adore Your Second Chance,” which was July 6th. So I announced this mashup on the final day of June 2024 (while at the New York Pride Festival) to be premiered exactly one year after debuting my first ever mashup. This is definitely one of the better mashups of mine, as it’s fun and upbeat, and both songs match each other’s vibe extremely well. I even called it a “match made in mashup heaven” in my announcement post.

Oh and fun fact – my favorite mashup of all time is of “We Found Love” and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).”