I sent my friends three mirror selfies before a birthday dinner last month because owning six black dresses apparently still requires a group-chat committee. The shortest one won after my friend announced “That dress has an agenda” and she knew I did, too. I had already seen the guest list and knew the guy I wanted would be there so I let him watch me from the other end of the table for most of dinner while I decided how long he deserved to sweat. When the host pushed the furniture aside and turned dinner into dancing I sent one final message to the group chat – “I’m done being subtle.” My phone stayed on the table as I crossed the room and took the drink out of his hand. He pulled me close and his palm slid from my waist to my ass as the music got louder. Kate Anstey’s Temptation understands the thrill of that choice because a woman who knows she is wanted has no fucking reason to waste the whole night pretending otherwise.
This track is pure nu disco euphoria. It’s Kate Anstey’s third single, and it brings together a hell of a team for a song about giving in to mutual attraction and letting the dance floor handle the foreplay. JUNO Award-winning Ron Lopata, who has worked with Scott Helman and Victoria Duffield, produced the track, and clearly Kate wanted someone with receipts. Lopata formerly served as vice president of artists and repertoire at Warner Music and is a member of legendary Canadian R&B group jackSOUL so he has spent plenty of time around music made for dim lights and very close dancing. He co-wrote the song with Tia Brazda – a singer-songwriter whose own work has earned millions of streams and international acclaim because temptation this confident deserves a woman who knows how to write desire without making it coy. Together, they give Kate room to own the rush of wanting someone and enjoy the night without turning the morning into a sunday school morality lesson.
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Right away there’s a stare held several seconds past polite, which is usually enough to have me picturing my dress on his floor. “Pink champagne in my glass / See you across the room / Know what I gotta have / Are you feelin’ it too.” He is still across the room and she is already imagining how that attention will feel once he is close enough to use it. That filthy little gap between keeping your dress in place and picturing it around your waist is where temptation does its best work, and mine has made that trip on less.
She makes him watch for a little longer because turning him on from several feet away is half the fun. “Let the pressure fade / Away into the night our escapades / You got me movin’ like I’m on the stage / So come a little closer baby / Closer babe.” You can feel her hips getting looser while she gives him enough of a view to start picturing where his hands will go. Now he needs to get over there and put all that attention to work. Any man who keeps hovering while a woman is moving this way deserves to watch somebody else take his damn place.
The chorus is where the flirting finally starts costing them some self-control – “Temptation / Wanna feel your hands on my body / Lookin in my eyes like you want me / No limitations / Cuz the night is ours / And I wanna feel your love.” Now they are calculating how much they can get away with in public. Her dress is riding higher while completely dickmatized by what’s pressing against her thigh. She has already started thinking about the organ waiting behind a locked door, and honestly, so have I.
Once he is close enough to feel, Kate gets even hotter because she is dancing for her own pleasure as much as his. “High heels and music on blast / My soul is shining through / Under the lights when we dance.” She is turned on by being seen and the rhythm gives her an excuse to keep rubbing against him until standing still would feel ridiculous. A woman who knows her body looks good under those lights can make a man lose his fuckking mind without taking off a single thing. Her clothes stay on while the heat underneath them gets impossible to ignore.
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By the end she gets reckless with the feelings. “Dance I wanna dance / Don’t care with who / J’aime toi beaucoup.” That French line means “I love you very much,” because apparently plain English cannot hold this much horny affection. I support confessing your feelings in another language while your heels are still on and somebody’s hand is getting ambitious. That is romance with its lipstick already fucked up, which is my favorite kind.
Long before Temptation, Newfoundland’s arts community had Kate singing with the Shallaway Youth Choir and training under Michelle Chippett at Dynamic Sounds Music Studio, with performances alongside Best Kind Productions while her movement training came through The Dance Centre and Kittiwake Ballet, because apparently choosing between the microphone and the dance floor sounded boring as hell. Kate received the Equinor Arts Smarts Scholarship in 2022 along with the DTAN Scholarship, which supported her studies at George Brown College and put her through its Dance program until she graduated in 2024. That background in music and movement gave Seventeen its vocal force and rhythmic feel, and Kate has several more releases planned after this one. She has spent years teaching her voice and body how to command the same stage, and that damn work shows whenever she steps into the spotlight.
Back at the birthday dinner the host started collecting abandoned glasses while we were still moving beside the speakers and my friend finally pressed my phone into my hand with the look reserved for women who have clearly chosen a different ending to the night. He asked if I wanted to keep dancing somewhere quieter so I told him to call the Uber. Temptation takes me straight back to that delicious moment when the crowd disappeared and my body felt louder than every sensible thought I owned. I got into the car with my lipstick ruined and his hand low on my thigh very pleased that I had crossed the room first.
