The Singles Jukebox

Cowbell!

[Video][Website]
[6.43]

Crystal Leww: Martin Solveig did a One Mix for Apple Music’s Beats 1 offering earlier this year and it was…honestly kind of boring. Honestly, being a world class DJ over an extended period of time seems like tough work; the genre thrives on innovation and freshness, that it can’t be easy for the Solveig’s of the world with 15 years of experience to not settle into a sort of complacency. Solveig’s One Mix was full of songs that didn’t sound like his signature sound (a plus!) but it also sounded like a set by any DJ with access to Soundcloud and Twitter. “Do It Right,” thankfully, has made Solveig relevant again, mostly due to a phenomenal collaboration with the always excellent Tkay Maidza, who continues to sound fresh. “Do It Right” borrows some elements of the breezy tropical house and combines them with some big drums, some cowbell, and an insatiable vocal from Maidza. 
[7]

Katie Gill: A: I know David Guetta doesn’t have copyright on that style of plonky opening beat but, wow, did that sound like “Turn Me On” shoved through the beach mode setting on your keyboard. B: Lyrics like “Show me yours I’ll show you mine” have gone the way of B*Witched: please don’t put them in your song, it’s just tacky. C: All that aside, I still don’t know if I hate this song. I know I hate the break because it’s the most basic level of “minimalist beat while everybody dances” that we’ve seen before time and time again but I absolutely adore Tkay Maidza’s voice. She’s the highlight of this song, taking some mediocre EDM piece to new heights.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Keep tapping that cowbell and switching to a falsetto you can be sure you’re doing right, and after a year of indie world buzz Tkay Maidza needs to make some of that Meghan Trainor dough.
[8]

Patrick St. Michel: Overall, this is certainly not the best backdrop for Tkay Maidza…and yet she still turns in a pleasant enough performance that glides well with Martin Solveig’s jittery trop-house, while also allowing the less chill elements of the song to stand out.
[6]

Cassy Gress: It’s a more aggressive and ominous tropical house riff than I’m used to, particularly when Tkay and someone male (Martin?) take turns commanding “Do it right.” My only real concern is that I have no idea what Tkay is doing here; her singing voice is fine, but didn’t Martin listen to anything past the first 30 seconds or so of a Tkay song?
[6]

Taylor Alatorre: At first I wanted to give this a low score based on the obvious rip of Guetta and Nicki’s “Turn Me On.” Then I realized that “Turn Me On” is actually kinda bad, and this is actually kinda good. Maidza limits herself to the standard dance lyrical clichés — “show me yours, I’ll show you mine” is the most egregious example — but she sells the hell out of them, never straining her upper register as Nicki does. Solveig’s production is so sterile that it rolls back around to playful, making the cowbells feel like natural extensions of the vibe rather than tacked-on oddities. If anything feels tacked-on, it’s the build-up and release in the middle, which only serves to confirm that, yes, Mr. Solveig has released on Spinnin’ Records before.
[6]

Will Adams: A pared-down version of last year’s excellent “Intoxicated,” with a majority of the horn blasts substituted with steel drums bought from Calvin Harris’ garage sale.
[6]