When two artists decide to join forces, the result can be a predictable exercise in compromise. Or—a rare case when collaboration opens new dimensions for both. Jane Marie, working with Jessica Mia, whose vocals have long resided in the upper echelons of commercial pop, chooses the second path. Their new single “Are We Done” shows up when nobody cares anymore about the indie-versus-mainstream thing, and the track makes use of that.

The plot is painfully simple: two people know it’s over, but they keep performing a play for themselves. The track is titled as a question, though the question is rhetorical—the answer lies on the surface, there’s just no one to voice it. Jane Marie takes this impasse and builds the song’s structure from it, where being stuck becomes the method.

The track opens almost ascetically: piano, air, silence. These opening bars establish a tone of fragility, a moment when everything still seems reversible. But Jane Marie understands perfectly that stasis kills drama, and begins gradually layering elements. The minimalism of the intro is a temporary moment—it exists so that it can be departed from.

By the middle of the song, the minimalism disappears. The piano grows strings, the arrangement expands to cinematic proportions. Jessica Mia’s vocals, which at the beginning stayed in the safe zone of melodic pop, begin to crack at the seams. She shifts to pleading intonations—and here the singer makes the right choice, allowing emotion to seep through her usual polish. This is the climax, where everything that was hidden beneath the surface comes out.

After the peak, the track does what smart ballads do: it returns. The orchestral elements recede, the piano comes to the forefront again, the vocals quiet down. The circle closes, but the final silence sounds different from the initial one. Now it’s the silence after a conversation that took place, after a question whose answer was received in silence.

What’s important—the track holds on to honesty of performance. Jane Marie avoids the trap of excessive ornamentation, and Jessica Mia allows herself to be vulnerable within the pop format, which happens less often than one would like. This is a ballad that knows its nature and uses its strengths and truly—

“Are We Done” finds strength in its candor. Such collaborations happen when artists understand each other at a level where explanations are superfluous. Connoisseurs of quality pop that knows how to speak about emotions without simplification will get exactly what they came for here. This is a rare case when ambition and potential go hand in hand, mutually reinforcing each other.

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