Senior Dunce has never been afraid to embrace his awkwardness, but “Romantic LLM” is a different kind of brave. It’s a love song for the digital age, wrapped in shimmering 80s synths and dripping with melancholy, yet somehow still danceable. The track asks the kind of question you didn’t know you needed to hear: what happens when our most universal desire—love—is mediated through algorithms?
It’s a big question, but Dunce doesn’t overcomplicate it. Instead, he lets the music do the talking. The glossy layers of synth create a dreamlike backdrop, while DORA’s velvet vocals cut through with a warmth that feels almost startling against the digital gleam. She doesn’t just sing on the track—she humanises it.
The magic of “Romantic LLM” is that it feels nostalgic and futuristic at the same time. There are shades of The Midnight’s neon sparkle, echoes of Her’s cinematic longing, even whispers of Blade Runner’s melancholy—but it never collapses into pastiche. It’s very much its own thing, a Dunce creation through and through.
For an artist who thrives on blurring irony and sincerity, this track feels like a perfect storm. You can laugh at the absurdity of falling for an AI, but you can also feel the sting of it—the inevitability, the sadness, the strange beauty of it. Dunce’s persona as the eternal outsider has never sounded more relatable.
“Romantic LLM” isn’t just another single; it’s a moment of clarity for an artist unafraid to turn awkwardness into an art form. You’ll dance, you’ll reflect, and you might just wonder what love will look like in the decades to come.
