‘Hair Down’: Mollie King’s Return Is One Na-Na-Noisy Pop Banger (Single Review)

“NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA.”

Yesterday, I proclaimed that Mollie King was coming back to save pop.

Here she is now, a day later, saving pop — or, at least, invoking nostalgia for a very specific time in British pop music approximately one decade ago.

After kicking off her career with the chill electro-balladry of “Back To You,” The Saturdays member-turned-solo star’s gone back to her banging Xenomania roots with her follow up, “Hair Down.”

The song’s a mess…but in a great way?

Instantly reminiscent of the rollicking production and nonstop lyrical madness of Girls Aloud (“Sexy! No No No” but “na na na”?), The Saturdays (obviously, a la “All Fired Up”) and Alesha Dixon (“The Boy Does Nothing”) in their heyday, “Hair Down” is a boldly in-your-face, aggressively anti-Top 40 radio choice for 2017.

The first verse is lunacy from the get-go: “Pleased to meet you, barbershop quartet / But that means you obviously ain’t getting any sex / You need to brush up on your harmony / The way you’re crooning doesn’t work for me!” (Barbershop quartets around the world are already preparing their #BOYCOTTMOLLIEKING protest signs.)

And the second verse is…some sort of mish-mosh of football metaphors? “You never thought I’d have a striker sitting on the bench.” As if the target audience for this song knows a damn thing about a “substitution in the second half.”

Then again, the only thing that’ll be lodged in your brain for hours afterward is one simple, grating, sax-filled taunt of a hook: “NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA.”

It’s camp, catchy, brash, trashy, likely divisive and certainly not cool by modern standards — just how I like it.

Miss King is quite the Queen for this one. Saxy! Yes, yes, yes.

Mollie King Hair Down GIF

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISS1Y5n77gI

“Hair Down” was released on September 1. (iTunes)

Total
33
Shares
Prev
Mollie King Is Coming Back to Save Pop Now, Too

Mollie King Is Coming Back to Save Pop Now, Too

The Saturdays solo star is joining Girls Aloud's Nadine in a renaissance of the

Next
#StillWorthListeningToOnMonday: Cassie, Jessie Ware, Frida Sundemo + More

#StillWorthListeningToOnMonday: Cassie, Jessie Ware, Frida Sundemo + More

The very best of #NewMusicFriday, including an unexpected dance floor delight

You May Also Like