New E-Girls: “Dance With Me Now!”
E-girls don’t make particularly daring music. They are a double-digit unit hanging off the EXILE family tree who make high-energy pop songs. The group resembles a traditional idol outfit such as Morning Musume — lots of members capable of being put into smaller groups (or, uh, coming from pre-existing outfits) and of being ushered onto a solo path if it looks possible — but one taking cues from the precision of the contemporary K-pop juggernaut, another place where originality hasn’t played a big part, but rather the ability to pick up established or steam-building sounds and engineer them into something different and (most importantly) catchy as hell.
“Dance With Me Now!” is factory-tight pop that burbles and booms, a song forcing a moment (the title isn’t a question or request, but a demand) which they then transform into a heart-racing bit of dance pop. Every inch of it is pieced together just right to underline the jittery excitement of a night at a club, all this fine tuning resulting in something that somehow sounds deeply human (see also: K-pop, Perfume, pretty much all top-notch pop songs). These sentences could be applied to pretty much any E-girls song at this point, but “Dance With Me Now!” manages one of the group’s most massive hooks yet — the titular phrase milked for all its worth, before they add some vocal fireworks to the fray (with some J-pop specific additions, such as being one minute too long). It isn’t particularly daring, but it’s a finely tuned and irresistible pop number, which is every bit as impressive. Listen above.
