Our first-ever roller-skating anecdote? Possibly…

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Michaelangelo Matos: “Put your middle finger up and let the haters know”: Britain’s latest R&B comer has no problem staying on message, and woe betide those who aren’t with the program: “You should be stepping to the rhythm like I showed you/Like I showed you.” That’s not simply repetition, but a reprimand: “Like I showed you, or else.” In short, a tutorial on stardom by someone who barely exists on the charts; she’s here to tell us that we are all winners, but only if we do it her way: “Because you’re bringing it down.” Ballsy.
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Martin Skidmore: I am amused by this line on Wiki: “When writing “Bring It”, Connor did not have anything in mind.” Nonetheless, with the help of “Good Times” producer David Dawood, we get a pretty punchy dance number with swirling synths, plus a lively guest rap from Tinchy Stryder. Her voice is a touch strident, the lyrics are identikit and there’s nothing especially interesting in the music, but it has some potency and plenty of cheeriness.
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Hazel Robinson: I think the last time I heard Jodie Connor was on a bassline track that her voice was far more suited to — her almost-conversational tone is lost here, drowned by Red One-esque synths, which is a shame since both the song and her are really pretty likeable.
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Jer Fairall: Rihanna-lite at a time when Ri’s own recent output hasn’t been that heavy, there is still no use questioning the potential of this as club filler, even if it only gets there by dusting off several dance music cliches so tired that even Rihanna wouldn’t work with them unless in the company of David Guetta.
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Katherine St Asaph: I guess since Cascada un-evacuated the dancefloor, an Alice Deejay revival was inevitable. Jodie’s as syrupy as the synths, Tinchy mostly stays out of the way, and things bounce along fast enough for you either to join in or, given a few seconds, let it pass by.
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Zach Lyon: The first five or six times I listened to this, I didn’t even realize it was on. More of a transitional track on the playlist. Jodie doesn’t really stand out to me, the production doesn’t really stand out, and I feel the same about Tinchy Stryder as I always have (it’s hard to feel anything about Tinchy Stryder). And then, midway through work or school or whatever, I would suddenly realize I had this phantom song in my head, and it was catchy as all get-out, and I had no idea what it was until I combed over every song on the playlist. And it’s really just the melody/bangertude of the chorus; the rest is still unnoticeable, but if you don’t notice it, it’s not really doing much harm, is it?
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Josh Langhoff: Went to the local roller skating rink last week — our family looks forward to this all year, we’re lame. For some reason the big intimidating guys who run the place kicked things off with “Gonna Make You Sweat”, and bizarrely continued with a mix of ‘80s/’90s house-and-freestyle-derived pop hits; Black Box, Taylor Dayne, that kind of stuff. I dug this playlist, even though its weirdness paled in comparison to the Stevie B mix — that’s right, A ROLLER SKATING PLAYLIST OF STEVIE B SONGS — we enjoyed a couple years ago. But after an hour of nostalgia music the kids had cleared the floor and the night was dying, so when the ENTIRE PLAYLIST began to repeat, my kid had the wisdom to request some Lady Gaga. Well! Gaga led to Ke$ha led to Britney led to more big boshy explosions of youthful skating NRG, and the kids were happy and bought glow-in-the-dark tchotchkes, and I reflected on how much better today’s dance-pop sounds than the stuff I grew up with. This is probably a matter of sonic technology — Britney’s “Three” is no match for Taylor’s “Tell It To My Heart” as a song, but as a skating accompaniment, “Three” totally shoots the duck. To sum up, “Bring It” is pretty generic, but all those synthesized layers make me think I won’t be able to wait another year.
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