The Singles Jukebox

It’s Distractingly Hot Dudes Wednesday! Contain yourselves…

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[6.50]

Anthony Easton: Handclaps! Sing-along choruses! Feel-along love! Steel drums! Why didn’t this come along in June?
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: The ft.-less original, entirely in Spanish, was already a sizable European hit early in the summer, and this would feel like a pallid cash-in for the American markets, except you don’t get J. Lo to not add some personality to your breezy singalong. Texturally it already sounded American, with folkloric marimbas, sertanejo accordions and a watered-down Afro-Caribbean beat; but the dynamics are pure Eurotrance, which adding J. Lo just makes punchier. Soler alone sounds a little too much of a dippy idealist to be believed; with Lopez, utopia sounds a lot more like a party.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Lopez has sprinkled cameos on good tunes from Prince Royce to Jason Derulo this year, and this marimba-kissed thumper joins them.
[6]

Ramzi Awn: J. Lo has been on more red carpets than Meryl Streep, and it isn’t because she was making movies. Versace’s most infamous spokesperson has personality, and joining the features game is a sign of maturity. Lopez has a flair for the dramatic, which could be why her verse on “El Mismo Sol” is the best part of the song. The rest impressively goes in one ear and out the other.  
[5]

Scott Mildenhall: Written and signed with Germans in Germany, number one in Switzerland and Italy, and now transformed into a hectic, code-switching jamboree with an American. This is desperately selling an idea of Spain in the grand tradition of the Iglesias family and doing so wonderfully. Soler even looks like an underused Real Madrid sub! If only he were, though, because that’s the only thing that could up the FIFA World Cup™ Official Celebration Song quotient further. Facile, apolitical affirmations of a borderless world are regularly a source of great joy, as well as one of glaring irony.
[8]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: There’s a lot that’s irritating about this: the lyrics being a first-draft re-reading of We’re All The Same messaging, the music’s swerve from vibes and guitar into every other obvious J. Lo song post-“On the Floor”, the hokeyness of Soler’s “que pasa J. Lo?” ad-lib. It’s hard to be mad at something so buoyant and optimistic, even when it’s not good.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: The epitome of a continental-Europe summer hit, complete with handclaps, accordion and a singalong chorus about the good life. And added for (theoretical if not actual) global domination, J-Lo, who adds nothing at all.
[5]

Megan Harrington: I should probably knock “El Mismo Sol” a point for Lopez’s only ok contribution. It’s a much better, much catchier song in its original incarnation. With J. Lo the mix is meatier, but some of the internal rhyme scheme is sacrificed to make room for lines in English. This isn’t ideal, but it would take a lot to ruin “El Mismo Sol.” Whichever version you pick, you’ll have this stuck in your head for days. 
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