It took almost 20 years, but finally the world gets the “Hobart Paving” answer song it deserves…

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Iain Mew: With help from Ronaldo, Marcelo and co, “Ai Se Eu Te Pego” has been lighting up charts across Europe for a while now. It’s been even more popular in Belgium than Lykke Li and even more popular in Germany than that bloke from Mattafix. Now it has a version in English, but if I wasn’t the kind of Brit who looks at European charts every week I would still never have heard of it. Adding the understanding of some simplistic and slightly creepy lyrics to its smarmy musical vibes doesn’t make its appeal any clearer to me, either. This is one of those times when the Channel feels like a cultural chasm.
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Jonathan Bogart: The seers have been gesturing with dire looks toward the scarred memories of the Macarena for some time now. “You think it can’t happen again? You think it can’t happen here?”
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Alfred Soto: Without the accordion, this song would be “Run For Your Life” for a Biarritz resort tiki hut act.
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Katherine St Asaph: He wanted to add misogyny and accordion drizzle to “Billionaire,” so fucking bad.
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Edward Okulicz: A minute of this feels like having a crap time on a crap package holiday, ending up somewhere oppressively boring and skin-searingly hot, and then being held at knifepoint and told to enjoy yourself or else.
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Anthony Easton: Does the cheerful music and threatening lyrics thing really well, a juxtaposition that seems to be an easy trick but an effective one. I always get a little nervous when it is men who are playing the game, as men who commit violence seem more willing and have less consequences, but this might not be fair to Teló.
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Brad Shoup: Google says this tracks pretty closely with the original Portuguese, and I must say I’m flattered they didn’t dumb the lyric down for me. I know it’s chauvinistic, but having an English lyric makes the song’s Earth-swallowing dominance a bit less mystifying. Actually, it’s now full-on adorable, like watching a tourist re-enact the ZZ Top fingerpoint for three minutes.
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