Let’s talk about Cool Around You, that new track from Idarose that goes a long way in exposing the hot girl exterior we all have. You know… we play it cool until someone really rocks our world, then we’re back to being that awkward teenager who can’t string two sentences together without blushing. Yeah, it’s giving every crush you swore you had under control—until you didn’t.
If you missed our first ride with Idarose, let me catch you up. Idarose is Alexis Kesselman—South Florida raised, fluent in Spanish, dripping with Latin influence she can slide into her lyrics on a whim. She’s got the receipts too: a Media Writing & Production degree from the University of Miami’s Frost School, then a Master’s in Writing & Design for Musical Theater from Berklee NYC. She doesn’t just write—she produces, mixes, and delivers the whole damn thing herself. Even her name is personal, a mash-up of three great-grandmothers—Id, Rosalind, and Rose—a quiet feminist middle finger in the middle of the music industry.
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She’s stacked with credits. She’s touched everything from Joji’s Glimpse of Us (a billion streams and counting) to Naomi Scott’s Smile 2 EP, Brett Eldredge, Kelly Clarkson, Becky G, TWICE, Suki Waterhouse, Grace VanderWaal, and more. Her own ‘When I Don’t Have You’ is past 2 million streams, and it’s still climbing.
The first time I heard Cool Around You was in the middle of something I probably shouldn’t talk about, but definitely will. My apartment. Second drink on the nightstand. His shirt was on the floor, mine was halfway off, and his phone was hooked up to the little Bluetooth speaker in the corner. I didn’t even clock the song until it hit the line “I get so weird when I see you / ‘Cause I don’t just wanna be friends”—and suddenly I’m half on top of him, half somewhere else entirely, because oh shit. That’s it. That’s exactly what it feels like to be in a room with someone who makes you lose all composure. I’m grinning like a drunk idiot, trying to focus on him, but the track keeps tugging my brain in this other direction—past hookups, missed chances, all those moments you swore you’d play it cool and failed spectacularly.
Idarose built Cool Around You with the same kind of Taylor Swift-level precision for turning ordinary snapshots into full-blown obsession fuel—but where Taylor leans polished and nostalgic, Idarose keeps it younger, messier, like she’s still tangled up in the moment. It opens on “2 am and it’s pouring rain / I’m running back to see your face / through pink flamingos dancing in the yard”, and you’re already soaked—not just from the weather, but from the kind of adrenaline you only get when you’re sprinting toward trouble you know you can’t resist. That cactus bumper sticker on his car, the sneaking back through the side gate, the fake cigarettes—it’s all the little details that make your pulse tick faster.
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She leans into clumsy intimacy, too. The telescope scene kills me—her laughing so hard she bangs her eye, him asking “how is outer space looking tonight?” while she’s too busy watching his lips to even hear the rest. You can feel that suspended heartbeat in how she sings it, the feeling of knowing exactly what’s happening to you, and you still can’t stop it. To be cool around you isn’t something I can do is pure surrender.
By the time the last verse hits—music loud, drinks spilling, her hands on his chest—it’s not about playing it smart. The friends are leaving, the clock is ticking, but there’s a line you can’t uncross. “You grab my hand and you kiss me” is the moment the night folds in on itself. No overthinking, no strategy, just two people leaning all the way into a bad idea that feels like the only right move left.
‘Cool Around You’ is a song for the crush you can’t hide and for the nights you didn’t even try. It’s for every time you swore you’d walk away and instead stayed until sunrise, hair tangled, shirt wrinkled, knowing you’d do it all again. It’s the sound of that hot girl coolness slipping right off your shoulders, pooling at your feet, until there’s nothing left between you and the person who makes you lose your balance in the best possible way.
