The Singles Jukebox

We can’t get enough of those Hot Cheetos and takes…

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[5.20]

Crystal Leww: No one knows what is happening with DJ Snake’s career post-Encore, his debut album that dropped in 2015. There have been a number of promo singles, none of which have really hit. A lot of this is just a function of the decline of ~sensitive EDM-pop~, of which, DJ Snake is not the only casualty (watching The Chainsmokers has been a struggle), but it has felt painful after the highs of “The Middle” and “Let Me Love You.” Meanwhile, Ozuna, Cardi B and Selena Gomez have all benefited to varying degree from the popularization of Spanish language music in American pop culture — the former two more explicitly and the latter more implicitly from the flexibility to do stuff like this. “Taki Taki” felt like a disappointing listen at first, but I do keep hitting play. After all, this is what money can often buy you — a track with big names that sounds expensive and glossy. Would it be able to compete for song of the summer? No, but I guess it’s October after all. 
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: DJ Snake, as always, gets the technical specs right, constructing a streamlined reggaeton for mainstream viability while retaining the spirit of the genre. It’s what he adds to that framework in a bid for earworm status that subtracts from its overall integrity. I know forced fun when I hear it, and that processed whistle hook, sounding like it was lifted from a Jack Ü nightcore remix, is the epitome of forced fun. Ozuna’s verse is a fitting aural set piece, Selena Gomez performs decently in her tryout to replace Camila in Fifth Harmony (RIP), and Cardi B embodies the essence of what it is to be Cardi B in twelve bars. It sounds like a good time. Not exactly clear what differentiates a “whole rich bitch” from a partial one, but judging from her delivery it’s an important distinction to make.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: This is a perfect hit for this moment in pop music, combining the talents of Ozuna, Cardi B and Selena Gomez with a beat sure to light up charts the world over. A shame though that it’s all in service of DJ Snake’s lame reggaeton xerox, which is just tacky tacky. But his guests get it over.
[6]

Stephen Eisermann: The fun, sexy, Latin track we didn’t know we needed after “I Like It”; DJ Snake makes us listen to a little too much Ozuna before giving us Cardi and Selena, but even his (extended) verse isn’t bad. He does his best to hype listeners up, but the real treat begins when Cardi repeats that Spanish pre-chorus. Her verse is cute, if unoriginal, but it’s listening to Cardi and Selena get in touch with their Spanish that really ups the ante here. 
[7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Ozuna is by far the best feature here, able to switch up his flows in a manner that constantly keeps the song moving forward. Just listen to how his vocal rhythms work with and against the snaking synth melody, elevating the danceability of the song by modeling it himself. When Cardi B appears, she brute-forces her charisma to make her performance seem like a worthwhile contribution; she’s not leading her partner as much as dragging them along. While she sounded drab on “La Modelo,” she refuses to hone her craft here and instead overcompensates, sounding dangerously close to self-parody in the process. Selena, on the other hand, just sounds like an amateur. Those coos are unearned shortcuts to sensuality, and the “ah ah ah” that precedes them reveals how ineffective her singing actually is. The whispered affectation she employs proves even more uninviting.
[3]

Alex Clifton: I was fully prepared for this to be a hot mess — one of those weird mash-ups of performers with a DJ to unify them as they all do their best — but I actually ended up really liking “Taki Taki.” It’s been a while since I’ve heard a dance song that actually made me want to dance; like, the subconscious hips-don’t-lie movements that happen anytime something good comes on. Everyone sounds like they’re really in their element, especially Selena, who always sounds at home over a beat like this. 
[6]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: This is a mess but a different kind for each participant — DJ Snake’s production and Ozuna’s hook duty seem to think that keeping the energy up will distract from how lightweight the song is (and they’re mostly right), Cardi B leans into the frothiness (and it works), but Selena, who sounds mostly confused that she’s on this at all, reveals the whole faulty enterprise as a sham with her last verse. It had me going there for a while, though.
[5]

Jibril Yassin: This feels like the sequel to “Mi Gente” down right to the pre-choruses. While Selena Gomez, Ozuna and Cardi B are excellent vocalists, this song collapses under the weight of its cut-and-paste star power and the bleating hook does it no favours. 
[4]

Andy Hutchins: I often think of synths reaching for the highest pitches as “tea kettle synths,” designed to alarm with their shrillness. The ones DJ Snake deploys here are more like dog-whistle synths, except I can hear them and hate them. Ozuna is here to rhyme things with the Nonsenseish phrase “Taki Taki,” which inevitably leads to the regrettable “booty explota como Nagasaki” way earlier in his verse than I would have thought; Cardi is here to do a generic rendition of Cardi, but throws in some rapping in her first language so assonant that I want entire albums of it; Selena is … here, whispering painfully, and yet her Spanish is a highlight, too. Here, in a rarity for Latinx-influenced pop, it’s the English that feels like pandering.
[3]

Juana Giaimo: “Taki Taki” is the kind of collaboration where each of the artist comes up with a different song. There’s barely any interaction between the three and although all the parts have interesting elements, together they don’t quite work. Ozuna has loud verses and a flow that knows the reggaetón beat. Cardi B also has a strong voice, but deeper and with a harsher kind of rapping that goes well with Ozuna’s high-pitched vocals, but unfortunately, they don’t make use of the possible dynamics. Finally, Selena Gomez suddenly appears out of nowhere with her unique whispering voice, but passes almost unnoticed, giving a rather weak end to a song that could have been great.
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