The Singles Jukebox

…and we really have not much of an idea what’s timely for this, alas.

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[6.67]

Alfred Soto: J-pop reconstituted as Daft Punk. Squeeze it between your fingers and feel the high fructose corn syrup ooze.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: J-pop Daft Punk! Worthy of at least a good half of the overrating that such a combination would inspire. I say this because the synths shred like “Digital Love,” only Toshiko Koshijima’s vocals elevate this to a level of untempered euphoria only matched by Daft Punk’s instrumentals, which is quite a feat. And the lyrics aren’t obviously about robots! Too cluttered to be the pure electro-house stomper it nearly is, but the details are so fine and intricate that even shorn of the vocals (which are both indistinct and sweet enough to be just another instrument) it’d make a fine chiptune-influenced instrumental.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: Wants it both ways, the loopy chiptune morass and the quasi-emotional core, but can’t commit to either. Would it be too idiotic to suggest this needs more popstep?
[6]

Brad Shoup: I know it sounds like a ringtone designed to break prisoners at Gitmo, but damn this hits my pleasure center.
[8]

John Seroff : Warm and hyper-kawaii in a sweetly inhuman way, “Step on the Floor” is better than a Daft Punk videogame soundtrack in that it maintains all the double-jumps and minibosses but never tries to take itself very seriously. You won’t either, but it may still tickle a smile out.
[7]

Jonathan Bogart : Overcharged, diabetically sweet and so structureless that no matter how much syrup is poured on it, nothing sticks.
[6]

Michaela Drapes: Synesthesia is a strange thing; I am simultaneously reminded of the intense chemical smell of straightening treatments at my Japanese hair salon and the cheap weed stink of my apartment at the turn of the millennium, when my stoner roommate who never left his bedroom was obsessed with Daft Punk’s Homework and Cassius’ 1999. Is this good? I can’t really tell, it just … smells weird.
[4]

Anthony Easton : That small space where the obnoxious meets the sweet, and where the saccharine and twee meets the musically engaged, is pretty much impossible to find. But when you hit the spot, and add a little rhythm to it, the world gets to be a more interesting place.
[8]

Iain Mew: In the Loudness Wars, I’m on the side of not having Loudness Wars. I don’t think that Capsule producer Yasutaka Nakata is on the same side. I don’t have any Capsule on CD, but if I put any of Perfume’s albums on my stereo after anything else I have to quickly jump to the volume dial to avoid disturbing the neighbours. A waveform of “Step on the Floor” would probably be one big rectangle. Yet I love it, not even in spite of that but partly because of that, compression turned into an art. Somewhere in there is a pretty, precisely constructed but not very distinctive dance pop song, but it’s been turned it into this fascinating, glistening, overpowering thing by brick walling everything. Atonal sounds make the sparks of melody hit all the harder; Toshiko Koshijima’s inhumanly distorted vocals sound beautifully perfect in the context. I only wish that Nakata had put in even more cut-up vocals and stuttered sounds, because when he adds that kind of disruption on top of the strangeness (cf. Perfume’s “Laser Beam”) it is really thrilling.
[8]