Not a meme. Yet…
[Video]
[3.30]
Iain Mew: Excellent power-pop, with hooks everywhere including a strangely effective steal from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and a memorable chorus melody. Problem is, while ultra-catchy fluff is a fine thing to aspire to, its enjoyment also requires a mood particularly prone to being interrupted by offensive lyrics.
[3]
Josh Langhoff: Oh, “shake it like a bad girl up in Harlem.” At first I thought he was singing something else. Of course, associating “bad girls” with “shaking it” with “Harlem” is still reprehensible. Can’t say for certain, but here’s my privileged spectrum: Liking “Harlem” is more reprehensible than liking Harlem or liking the Harlem Shake or “Harlem Shake” or the nü Harlem Shake or even recording a version of yourself flailing about to “Harlem Shake.” Liking “Harlem” is also more reprehensible than a Danish band writing and recording “Harlem,” since the guidebook So You’re a Danish Hipster In New York includes a Harlem scavenger hunt with a checkoff box for “bad girl shaking it.” They simply don’t know, the poor things. On the other hand, liking “Harlem” is less reprehensible than posting internet comments saying you or New Politics or “Harlem” or “Harlem Shake” are in no way reprehensible and everyone should just lighten up; liking “Harlem” is also less reprehensible than stuff like gentrification and frisking Forest Whitaker, but you knew that. Plus the song kicks. As some girls, shaking it, once told the Stones: play louder and fuck off.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Well, this can go straight to hell. “Here come the Jets,” sings Dave Franco-lookalike David Boyd, but we know who he’s talking about. Look at him mugging around breakdancers and on the basketball court: all that’s missing is a little blackface during a St. Nicholas chess tournament. I can only imagine their careerist glee upon releasing this single in a post-Baauer world. Lyrical gentrification with a dash of “My Sharona” revival: no one needs this. If this is your anthem, buy a sjambok and get a fucking job that isn’t in branding.
[0]
Katherine St Asaph: Was this commissioned for the Doritos stage?
[4]
Jer Fairall: This decade’s “The Middle” or “Swing, Swing,” an anthem for a generation too hooked into Internet memes and too busy staging flash mobs to wallow in heartbreak or low self-esteem. If only all attempted public nuisances were so doggedly tuneful.
[9]
Patrick St. Michel: I’ll take the song with the problematic meme over this corny yelp-a-long.
[1]
Alfred Soto: The song sounds less like an aural demilitarized zone without the video, but there’s still the matter of the man’s voice, hid behind several fire screens of filters that were déclassé years ago and peeking behind them only when he celebrates “her” fingers in his mouth. The guitars snap and crackle in the expected places. I don’t want to hear complaints about Vampire Weekend again — I mean, is their name and title concept a Columbia grad school project?
[2]
Ian Mathers: Man, New Politics would have been such a perfect name for a much better, much more ambitious band than this one. I have nothing against well executed pop rock, but this isn’t that well executed, and the politics of “shake it like a bad girl up in Harlem” are neither new nor desirable.
[2]
Anthony Easton: I wish this was politically offensive, so I could have a justification for my loathing.
[1]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Three things to discuss: (1) The refrain “shake it like a bad girl out in Harlem” is most likely the reason why this song is being covered today, and why it sounds glossy, and why people will bring up talk of cultural appropriation, Tumblr debates, etc etc etc. Let us just dial it in for a small second – it’s just a clumsy metaphor that will make it to dumb people’s Facebook status updates if RCA market it beyond the iTunes ads it was most likely written to soundtrack. (2) The last verse’s flip-phone reference sounds dialed in from 2005. I would like to take the time to talk about my friend John, who held onto a Nokia 3210 from the first day I met him to when I last saw him in December. He said for years that his old brick of a phone had an incredible anti-theft security system, the joke being that it was so ancient that nobody wanted to steal it. One time for my friend John! (3) I would rather not listen to something this oppressively inoffensive again.
[4]