The Singles Jukebox

Don’t care how, dance with me nooooooooooooow…

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[5.78]

Alfred Soto: The ratio to male shouting and earworm chorus is almost at an Aqua level, and to my ears E-Girls earn the exclamation point.
[6]

Patrick St. Michel: The rise of E-Girls in Japan over the last few years has signaled a lot of thinkpiece-worthy trends, but the best thing they bring to the mainstream is simplicity. It’s refreshing not having to explain anything about them, no “yeah, there’s more than a hundred of them and they wear schoolgirl uniforms, but not like that” or “oh, the music’s bad because they get better the more you support them, hey wait don’t leave!” “Dance With Me Now!” is direct and efficient, thumping along in the verses until it bursts into a big, dual-language firecracker come the chorus. Drop in a few trendy EDM touches, none of which are as obvious and dumb as they could be, and you have a stalwart pop song without any of the fuss.
[8]

Madeleine Lee: A few solid choruses in search of an underlying structure.
[5]

Iain Mew: I can’t find the writing credits to confirm any overlap, but this sounds a lot like the most pounding dance-pop tracks on Namie Amuro’s last few albums, only even more relentless and with less personality. The lack of light and shade in the vocal means that it becomes wearying before the five minutes is done.
[4]

Will Adams: The last time we covered E-Girls, I forgave the bottom-heavy mix. This time, it’s hard to get past it. Nothing in the low-end — extra percussion, undulating synths, bass slaps — is balanced well, turning the song into a cacophonous mess.
[5]

Cassy Gress: You know the part in “Happy Happy Joy Joy” where Ren is hammering himself on the head?  That’s roughly how aggressively I feel like the E-Girls want me to dance with them. Good grief. There’s a decent song underneath this, it’s just toned down a hair, so that it’s less of a demand and more of a request.
[4]

Brad Shoup: That beat clops like a team of horses. It obscures a couple great touches, like a tricky double-time line that leads into the pre-chorus, or a full-throated held harmony around 3:40. But focusing on these would be like gazing at trees during a foxhunt.
[6]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: The “Bounce, bounce, come on, bounce” sample is Eminem, right? Well, that and the distorted synth-bass runs were the only things that captured me in this otherwise basic EDM-pop track, but then those frantic vocal manipulations in the bridge made me give this an extra point. And the change in the rhythmic feel in the outro, oh man! Ok, i’ll give this a 
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: The exuberance of “Dance With Me Now!” is the bon vivant of the bedroom; we listen to this with our friends before exposing ourselves to the wider public. The insistent throb intermingled with the in-group camaraderie makes this; by song’s end, we’re ready to extend the imperative to the whole wide world.
[7]