The Singles Jukebox

Good morning! How do you feel about GUILT?

[Video]
[6.83]

Matias Taylor: It’s interesting how Latin Top 40 is staring to sound more like American R&B, a genre that had seen previously only moderate popularity in the region. Beyond obvious sonic comparisons, this has a massive hook, impeccable production, and perfect chemistry that brings many mid-noughties girl-guy collaborations to mind. Anuel AA is pure unapologetic testosterone: gleefully sexual and totally riveting. His deep, gorgeous tenor could make even the crassest dirty talk sound seductive, and he imbues the bad boy posturing with insight (“no te cambian por algo mejor”). Karol G more than holds her own, gliding in and out of her verse with calm cool confidence: the wiser, sadder player in this game who knows how it’s going to end and has learned how to protect herself the hard way. Portraying infidelity as equal parts damaging and sexy can be tricky, but “Culpables” doesn’t mince words, and with a soundtrack to match, works brilliantly. 
[8]

Katie Gill: At this point, we should probably swap out “music is the great unifier” quotes with “slightly boring, middle-of-the-road trap music is the great unifier.”
[5]

Ryo Miyauchi: Karol G and Anuel Aa ride the wave of Latin trap rather than coast ahead of it with their double-time cadence and the downcast trap-bass beat tailored squarely to current trends. It’s not a unique narrative direction, but the song’s relationship drama plays to the duet format well enough to keep the song somewhat fresh.
[6]

Stephen Eisermann: This is a sexy little song, but the lyrical content packs a definite punch. While Anuel and Karol trade verses with swagger and a matter-of-fact tone to their delivery. It’s hard to dance along and zone out the depressing lyrics, which essentially list a bunch of reasons for why people cheat; but damn, these two make infidelity sound so good.
[7]

Anna Suiter: This song doesn’t sound all that “guilty” to me, although maybe that’s just the language barrier talking. “Culpables” is guilty of making me dance a little in my seat, even if it doesn’t move much otherwise. That first kind of movement is more important sometimes, anyway.
[5]

Micha Cavaseno: Anuel Aa replaces Bad Bunny from “Ahora me Llama,” serving more or less the same purpose, and Karol blatantly references that single during her verse. Yet this time, the gloomy longing is alongside a cliched forbidden romance that is marked so eagerly with its sense of compromise — not with one another but of themselves. “Culpables” is a slack and sinful drift with its fuzzed-out synths and narcissistic disregard, built on the principle of abdication. But it’s not “so wrong but feeling right” but a record built on oozing sloth and lust, on smug satisfaction without regard of the supposed qualms. If anything, that’s the remarkable quality — that a record so eager to do bad really doesn’t have any hesitation to not try and be good.
[10]