Summer in Your Feet

Eliza Doolittle’s Rollerblades arrived in 2010 sounding like it had no idea anything was wrong with the world. That ska-inflected bounce, her voice doing specific English things with vowels, the whole production radiating a particular kind of summer afternoon—the track was almost aggressively cheerful in a way I couldn’t resist even when I tried. British pop occasionally produces something this uncomplicated, something that doesn’t reach for more than it is. Three minutes of sun on pavement, going nowhere, not caring. That’s the whole thing and it’s enough.