Nayer ft. Pitbull & Mohombi – Suave (Kiss Me)
Look, not every quasi-Latin pop explosion is going to be as good as “Macarena” and we just have to deal with it.
[Video][Myspace]
[4.50]
Alex Ostroff: You know what? “Suave (Kiss Me)” is probably to 90’s merengue what that Desrouleaux atrocity was to 90’s pop house, but I’ll eagerly greet a couple dozen more of its ilk if only to reinject a smidgen of syncopation into the four-to-the-floor hip-house dominating the charts. In a perfect world, the Spanish-English breakdown would be closer to 70%-30% than the opposite, but I’m also the guy holding out hope for Shakira’s “Rabiosa” to eventually impact American charts, so make of that what you will.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Trying to have its dom cake and eat it off the floor too, the song is a push-and-pull of command and response. Nayer seems perpetually on the cusp of breaking into “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” Mohombi hasn’t heard any good jokes lately, and Armandito’s on autopilot. No one comes close to Elvis Crespo’s jazz sensibility.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: I have a maybe unreasonable affection for singers who are (in the most uncharitable reading) just hot girls a susceptible producer/rapper/manager met in a club and are giving a career because they want to bone them: Nayer’s barely-present hook on “Give Me Everything” made the song for me, because it could be read as standoffish, a ghost in the party machine. Here, in a more central role, she’s less intriguing.
[7]
B Michael Payne: Taken a break from the Jukebox for a bit. And pace some surly poptimists, I had not taken in the full glory of Pitbull. That said: I can’t really tell apart Nayer, Pitbull, or Mohombi. I really think “suave” connotes what I’m getting from this song; people who use the word “suave” in conversation are nearly never it, right? It’s almost like 55% marketing term and 45% swing-and-a-miss verbal affect. This song sounds really constructed and cheesy. Going for it: I can picture having a good time jumping up and down to it.
[3]
Edward Okulicz: I’m fairly impressed that Nayer has gone from being a half-presence on other people’s records to even less on her own record. Pitbull’s parts sound like the focal points, much as Ne-Yo stole the show on ‘Give Me Everything” and overall “Suave” sounds like RedOne on.. not just autopilot, but working to get out as much product out of the studio with whomever is available to sing on it before the expiration of his commercial hot-streak. Yeah, I admit it, I’m suffering from some serious Pitbull fatigue too.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: Would you look at that: RedOne sounds bored. That’s a hell of an accomplishment, just not the one anyone was trying for.
[4]