Last month I blogged about Ariana Grande’s “The Way” and the introduction of 90s female-fronted pop R&B into the mix of styles from the decade currently being revisited and revived by younger artists. A couple of weeks prior to that the British X-Factor-winning quartet Little Mix released a single called “How Ya Doin’?” that sounds pretty much exactly like something that En Vogue might have dropped back in their Funky Divas days, from its sweet but tenacious vocal performances to its breakbeat rhythm parts (sampled from the 1981 Whatanuts record “Help Is on the Way” that’s also been used by De La Soul and MC Lyte) to its lyrics about voicemail, which I’m not sure that anyone under the age of 25 even knows what that is.
In the time since the song was released it’s received over 11 million views on its official YouTube page alone. So far it hasn’t been released in the U.S. (you can’t even stream the official YouTube video here), but, thanks to pop evangelists like my friend Maura Johnston (who’s also my editor at Maura magazine), it’s starting to get some traction here—a video uploaded for the sake of viewers left out of the official version’s country restrictions has over a million and a half views so far. For whatever reason someone in their camp doesn’t seem to think America’s ready for “How Ya Doin’?” despite the fact that it’s so catchy that I had it stuck in my head for days after my very first listen and the fact that Missy Elliott raps on it, which was enough to get that mediocre-at-best J. Cole single on the Hot 100.
Check out the equally 90s-inspired video (complete with someone doing the running man) after the jump, and wonder what exactly is wrong with people at major record labels.