At least it’s not our lowest scoring take on this subject…
[Video][Website]
[4.71]
Iain Mew: It’s hard not to make the comparison to Indiana. Her “Solo Dancing” was about, and evoked, the intense experience of dancing on your own. Martin Jensen’s doesn’t evoke that experience but is about gesturing to it as a way to tell someone to go away. Using that lens for a whole song foregrounds the unwanted intrusion in a way about as appealing as deciding to credit only the person producing the straightforward blend of Alan Walker and David Guetta.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: Credit your vocalists. Don’t rip off better songs. Don’t buy into the overinflated sense of accomplishment the industry will bequeath you for this.
[2]
Alfred Soto: He’s dancing solo because the trop-house hook, barely aerobic beat, and his timbre bore the hell out of spectators.
[3]
Ryo Miyauchi: How the singer (unfortunately not credited) flips the traditional male-female dance-floor exchange with an “um, excuse me?”-tone of rejection keeps the otherwise cliché “Solo Dance” afloat. It’s less an all-out cry of independence than a simple line of “I’m fine, thanks,” but the casual feel of her script is a welcome one in a single that wants to capture just another Friday night out.
[6]
Anthony Easton: I am impressed by how lush this is, and how the stripped down lyrics suggest a kind of erotic minimalism, instead of a tissue of cliches. The singular disco pleasure-for-pleasure’s-sake quality is kind of like Robyn’s “Dancing on my Own” without the melancholy. I enjoy a dance song where dancing might not be a metonym for fucking.
[10]
Scott Mildenhall: Halfway towards a good Melodifestivalen entry, Jensen deploys the incongruously limp drop that’s suggestive of him seeking a sort of grinning Anton Ewald dance routine, and lo, that’s what the video provides. This is not “Begging,” however, by any chalk. That is an example of a song that can keep the limited thrills coming; “Solo Dance” goes from intriguing to clumsy with one false move.
[5]
Will Adams: It’s only just now occurring to me that “dance, dance, dance” is a pretty hollow hook that rarely has its intended effect. Not helping is Jensen’s similarly leaden production, like Galantis hitting the snooze button.
[4]