“Doing It” is, undoubtedly, one of the standouts from Charli XCX‘s rowdy ‘n raucous sophomore record, Sucker. Within an album largely full of pop radio-friendly, middle fingers-aloft punk ‘tude, the lush tune plays like a loving, shimmering homage to ’80’s synth-pop.
As a result, Charli’s made the wise decision to release the song as the album’s next single in the UK — only, oddly, she has (or, well, ‘the powers that be’) enlisted Rita Ora to hop on the track and make it a duet. In fact, they’ve even pushed back the album’s release overseas just to accommodate the new version!
To be fair, there’s nothing actually wrong with Rita Ora, as PopJustice expertly pointed out in their “Why Do You Hate Rita Ora?” troll poll yesterday. “I Will Never Let You Down” was one of Top 50 Singles of 2014, after all!
But after hearing Rita’s reworking, one must ask: Why? Rita takes over during the song’s second verse, without changing the lyrics (or adding anything new at all, really), resulting in what is sort of undeniably a needless feature. She does ad-lib “R-I-T-A, X-C-X” at the very end, but, hmm…
Weird. But hey, if doing it (REFERENCE) like a pop girl tag-team helps to boost both Charli and Rita’s profile, then it’ll be worth the (seemingly minimal) effort.
“Doing It (feat. Rita Ora)” will be released on February 8. (iTunes)
