Maren Morris and Zedd previously had a hit with “The Middle” in 2018
Zedd and Maren Morris are reuniting to once again make dance-pop perfection!
The artists, who last teamed up on the smash hit “The Middle” in 2018, released “Make You Say,” their new single with Beauz, on Friday alongside a colorful new video.
The clip features Morris, 32, going through different stages of breakup-induced grief as identified by a series of colorful animations, starting with a river of tears and evolving into flames of rage before she finally finds herself healing through nature.
“Go ahead, walk away / You’re gonna miss the way I used to make you say / Oh my god, night and day / You’re gonna miss the way I used to make you say,” she sings on the track.
Zedd, 32, is also featured in the clip, sitting down to play the piano in Morris’s home. The video is part of Apple’s “Made on iPad” campaign, and features the video animation app FlipaClip.
“I started working on this record with BEAUZ about 3 or 4 years ago,” Zedd (real name Anton Zaslavksi) says of the track in a statement. “We went back and forth slowly, refining the production over the years, and then Charlie [Puth] and I got in the studio and wrote the topline for the track. Maren recorded a demo of it and sounded phenomenal, so I met her in Nashville, and we recorded the final vocal to ‘Make You Say’ and she took the song to a whole new level. ‘Make You Say’ is the kickoff of a new chapter for me and I can’t wait for the world to hear it.”
The song — which also features writing credits from Puth and Jacob Kasher Hindlin — comes four years after the release of the Grammy-nominated “The Middle,” which was recently certified 6x platinum. It also marks the first time that Zedd has worked with the same vocalist for a second time.
“I loved working with Zedd again on ‘Make You Say’ after such a thrill ride with ‘The Middle,'” Morris says in a statement. “It’s such a vibey melody and making the music video was definitely a first for me as far as choreography and animation go. The fans are gonna flip.”
In an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Zedd spoke about what sets “Make You Say” apart from “The Middle.”
“I think it was never on our mind, top it, or do it again in that regard, but from the outside, when people look at both of our names together, they automatically are going to think about ‘The Middle,’ whether we want that or not,” he told the radio host. ‘It’s not really up to us.”
Zedd continued, “I think our goal was to just make the best song possible. It tends to be more dancey, more clubby, I guess in a certain sense, but it doesn’t lose the wide appeal and the pop in the song, will it do what ‘The Middle’ has? I mean, nobody knows.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Morris spoke about creating the music video. “It was my first time doing choreography. I’ll use that word very sparingly. I think just acting, dancing,” she said. “I think the Apple team smashed it out of the park. It’s so beautiful and unique and just tells an even more emotional story along with the lyric. And so, it’s a very cool thing to be a part of.”
The musician then said of the track’s potential impact, “My favorite thing that the fans have said since we teased this collaboration is retail workers everywhere are shaking… ‘The Middle’ [has played in] every Target and Forever 21 and mall shop for years. So it’s happening round two now.”
Zedd — who revealed to Lowe, 49, that he’s working on a new full-length album — told PEOPLE in 2018 that he’d had about 15 different vocalists give “The Middle” a go, but nothing fit quite right until Morris recorded a demo.
“To me, it was just her vocal quality, her ability to sing something and make me believe it,” he said at the time. “There are words and melody, but they oftentimes don’t connect with the emotion, and she was really able to sing it and make me believe it. That’s what was most important to me. I don’t care about the genre you’re in. If you sing the song and I want to cry, then I know it’s perfect.”
The “Circles Around This Town” singer teased the track last week when she shared a photo of her and Zedd with the cryptic caption, “Round 2?”
“Make You Say” was eventually announced on Monday.
[via]
