Charli XCX: "Doing It" [ft. Rita Ora]
Miley’s “Party in the U.S.A.”. Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok”. Katy’s “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)”. This is the chart-clobbering, brain-zapping, awe-inducing 21st century lineage to which “Doing It” clearly aspires—and just-as-clearly nails. You know it from that opening giggle, the kind of “what me worry?” laugh someone might let slip after splashing a creepy barfly with water, stealing a six pack, or draining a half-court shot. It is the sound of invincibility, of youth, of not having to be anywhere until tomorrow afternoon. Charli XCX is familiar with this sound.
Along with its bubble-pop perfection, “Doing It” doubles as a joyous sign of progress. The last time I can remember the phrase “doing it” so prominently featured on a hit song was on LL Cool J’s gross-at-the-time (and utterly-gross-in-retrospect) “Doin’ It” in 1996. (Sample lyric: “Baby stick it out, here comes the man of steel.”) (Sorry.) But for all the implicit and explicit fun Charli has on “Doing It”, the song is not even necessarily about sex. It’s the latest salvo in the current wave of female BFF-core that has been dominating the Hot 100 for months, made even clearer by the track’s new remix with Charli’s fellow Londoner Rita Ora (who is really getting an awful lot of chances to break out Stateside). Ora’s performance neither adds nor takes away from the song’s instant-party jolt, but her mere presence—especially in the video, where the dudes are the ones in pasties—can’t help but bolster the sense of camaraderie. Because “Doing It” is one huge high-five, and high-fiving yourself looks pretty dumb.
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