The Singles Jukebox

A rebuke to PC Music?

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[6.00]Madeleine Lee: “Work” is a song you can vogue to. It has the qualities I admire in people who can vogue: deceptively straightforward moves and a cool demeanor, at a speed so relentless it’s lethal.
[6]

Crystal Leww: SOPHIE and PC Music made waves last year for their brand of pseudo-intellectual experiments in classing up pop music. I hated it — pop has always been worthy of serious consideration — and hated the way those acts benefited from feminine signifiers and imagery without slogging through the real shit that women in dance music endure. In addition, the music was unbound by rules in a really boring, unlistenable way. DUCKY’s music is similarly weird and internet-influenced without divorcing itself from the first rule of dance music, which is to make people dance. “Work” chugs along at a crazy high BPM, a collection of whistles and bumps and stomps and a repeated, pitch-shifted “work.” “Work”‘s incredible pop and dance sensibilities make the point that it’s trying to make stick further: a fuck you to the perception that women making dance music have shadowy male SOPHIE’s masterminding their work. DUCKY’s vocals here sound sickly, even condescendingly sweet even while she’s telling everyone “baby please I’ll decimate you with one hand over my eyes.” The line “I don’t need to replicate you but I’ll teach you for a bill” sounds like a deliberate dig at the rabid PC Music fanboys of the world. This is the sound of a producer demanding their goddamn respect while refusing to remove the qualities that have prevented them from getting that respect.
[9]

Katherine St Asaph: On another track “all I do is work” would come off sad or weary or at least have those undertones, but not here; it’s a dispatch from total hyperfocused flow. And another producer would probably want the exact cutesy cadence — you know the one, you’re probably expecting it — that the vocals deliberately shut down.
[8]

Iain Mew: Maddeningly catchy in a way that makes my response live up to its demands: on the basis of this song I don’t really like her, but I do respect her skill.
[5]

Daisy Le Merrer: My life these days is far removed from the clubs this is meant to be played in, but this resonates somehow. I’m alternating the pressures of being a new father and having a new job. I work all day staring at spreadsheets and at night I sleep on the floor next to the baby bed. The ebb and flow of the track don’t remind me so much of an intoxicated dancefloor experience as it does being sleep deprived in an open space and running on sugar and caffeine. I relate to these songs about working all the time, but not the part about it being empowering, though.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: The world doesn’t need a Bmore club take on 20 Fingers.
[1]

Brad Shoup: She’s not that far off from footwork. Anyway, I love how committed she is to the duck thing, from the line about the bill to the way the title morphs into quack and back again. The track itself is frantic: the low-end pumps as it keeps up with Ducky’s vocal, the whistles recall Miami bass. I’m imagining an EDM bro spinning on the floor like a cartoon tornado.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: Here I was, all ready to go to bat for the manic Nest Hq / Activia Benz sound, but “Work” isn’t really a strong to take super strong position on. It’s a solid number and in our current pop environment a nice new angle on “work,” but ultimately feels more like a warm-up to something bigger in the mix.
[5]