Songfacts®:

• From 2006 to 2011, Miley Cyrus played a pop star named Hannah Montana in the Disney series of the same name. In 2019, she starred in the Black Mirror episode "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" as Ashley O., a glossy pop star with a dark side that is suppressed by her handlers through pills and manipulation. Ashley's big hit is "On A Roll," a song with an empowerment message that belies what's happening behind the scenes.
• The song was created for the show but released as a single to streaming services with various remixes, credited to Ashley O. A music video was also released, which quickly garnered millions of views on YouTube.
• Musically, this is a reworking of the 1989 Nine Inch Nails song "Head Like A Hole," an industrial music landmark that rails against exploitation by the privileged class. In "On A Roll," these lyrics:
  
  Head like a hole
  Black as your soul
  I'd rather die
  Than give you control
  
  are replaced with:
  
  Hey, yeah, whoa-ho
  I'm on a roll
  Ridin' so high
  Achieving my goals
  
  The chorus of:
  
  Bow down before the one you serve
  You're going to get what you deserve
  
  becomes:
  
  I'm stoked on ambition and verve
  I'm gonna get what I deserve
  
  When Cyrus sang it in Black Mirror, it was strangely familiar to those who knew "Head Like A Hole," creating a strange dissonance. At the end of the episode, a liberated Ashley O performs the real version of "Head Like A Hole," ditching her pink wig and going with lots of black eyeshadow.
• Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker wrote the lyric; the track was made by the English production trio The Invisible Men, who have worked on the kind of modern pop songs "On A Roll" parodies. Their credits include "Do It Like a Dude" by Jessie J and several UK hits for the pop star Conor Maynard.
• In the Black Mirror episode, the Ashley Too robot, which contains Ashley's consciousness, explains the meaning of his song: "It's about when dreams come true. You know, I wrote all my early songs in my dreams and recorded them and put them on YouTube. That song's me saying, 'Look how far I came. If I did it, so can you.'"