The Singles Jukebox

Ukrainian duo ask not to be trolled; Maxwell does not oblige.

[Video][Website]
[4.83]

Micha Cavaseno: People from The Continent should always be excluded from rap. Talking about it, thinking about it, and most certainly TRYING TO DO IT. No matter how much they might provide cutesy dance production or go about it ironically for the sake of comedic songs and avoid dealing in bad troping, they are almost inherently stilted and stiff in their executions — perhaps done with purpose, but vehemently terrible. “Troll” is a dull, one note affair of comedic riffs as flows and put-ons and in-joke novelty with all the value of a pastry that tastes like uncooked oatmeal. This production? The kind of deliberately stunted electro-pop that we were getting away from back in the Lady Gaga era, further emphasizing the regressive cynical indifference behind a record like this. These sort of ‘gags’ feel like bile, the swill of scum-filled pranksters who are praised by the biggest dullards on the planet. My proposal is that until a European nation can go a full four years without wallowing in this kind of filth as their demonstration of popular understanding of rapping, they should maybe have some kind of embargo placed on them rather than be rewarded for this idiocy.
[2]

Iain Mew: I’m reminded of Hank Solo’s “Söpö” if it was less cute and more troll-ish: electro-pop music slashed to a brittle point and taken as a starting place, not an end in itself. The rapping is rubbish and their take on nightcoring the ending unspectacular, but there’s vivid delight to be had in everything else.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: As every other news story reveals a new swath of the Internet as built on a pile of Russian trolls, the most popular song in Russia has the chorus “don’t troll me.” The screenwriters of 2018 are all hacks. Although the song, while bad, does sound like a hypnotic dance remix of “Promiscuous Girl,” so maybe they’re just brilliant farce writers.
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: That title may make the song seem lack all self-seriousness, especially from the way its dressed: the synth-pop is dim, prickly and minimal as Mustard-wave, but its stuck-up attitude makes  “Troll” more fit for a playlist of stuff from the late ’00s. But Vremya & Steklo uses its titular word earnestly to the point it makes me question if these folks ever go online.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Could pitch-shift and speed this one up and turn it into a Robin S/Livin’ Joy style 90s banger, but where it is now feels more like a lazy meme that in days gone by would have infected the Internet but been quarantined from the charts.
[4]

Juana Giaimo: I imagine “Troll” is a funny song to dance at parties or for doing silly lip-syncing because even if you don’t know the language, the song conserves its ironic over-dramatic tone, especially in Nadya Dorofeeva’s parts. However, the repetitive robotic chorus makes it quite unbearable.  
[5]