The Singles Jukebox

Controversy? What controversy?

[Video][Website]
[4.50]

Patrick St. Michel: Another single accompanied by a controversial music video, another single that is just not all that interesting by itself.
[4]

Madeleine Lee: It was a mistake to allow this song to draw any attention away from superior title track “30Sexy,” not least of all because despite being all over it, Rain seems to be barely in this one. (Doesn’t superstardom at least grant you the privilege of having your rap a little higher in the mix than the backing track?) The stomp-happy Latin beat is fun, but “fun” isn’t much of a substitute for coherent songwriting.
[4]

Alfred Soto: Nostalgia for nineties dance musics meant reggaeton was next on the list, and this comes complete with sneered vocal.
[3]

Iain Mew: I heard of Rain winning Time‘s 2007 online vote for Person of the Year way before I’d ever come across the phrase ‘K-Pop,’ never mind heard any of it. His military service has had him away for such an age in pop terms, though, that I’ve never paid him the slightest thought since getting into K-Pop and it comes as a bit of a shock to be encountering new songs from him alongside Girl’s Day and Ailee and everyone else. So much has changed since 2011 that it’s a wonder his new songs haven’t been bigger flops, especially one as unfocussed and unmemorable as “La Song.” It moves between nostalgic brass, a horrible guitar solo and enthusiastic “la la la la”s without leaving a mark, even its excesses oddly tame. There’s too little to the song to give Rain any chance to stamp personality onto it, even if he still could.
[3]

Brad Shoup: It’s not quite decadent, but it is extravagant. There’s the same beat and the same brass as “Caught Up,” and that was my favorite track on Confessions. Hell, even the first verse is indebted to Usher. The second is rapped, unfortunately, and just trails off. Thank the Lord for the rock production (hair metal solo and heavy organ), and of course all those las, as cocky and present as fanfare.
[9]

Jessica Doyle: White privilege is, along other things, a failure to encounter the term “misogynoir” until people stated talking about the video for “La Song.” God knows the cartoonish caricaturing of black women is more memorable than anything that actually happens in the song.
[2]

Scott Mildenhall: There doesn’t seem to be much of a song here, as if he’s going to put the rest of the words in later. “La la”s are a great place to start — just ask Naughty Boy or Grasu XXL or Ivi Adamou — but if all you have is space in between them it starts to sound like you don’t really have any lyrical ideas, and your production – however imaginative – feels somehow empty. Also sounds a bit like the Trisha theme tune.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Limber Usher takeoffs, assured brass, the makings of a big song that doesn’t actually become big. I guess that’s where the video was supposed to come in.
[6]