The Singles Jukebox

Needs more drops… of paint!

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[5.71]

Lilly Gray: I chose this song to blurb solely because I interpreted the title as an extremely filthy joke. I was hoping this would be a thinly veiled Usher-esque slow jam rife with double entendres and even broke my rule of never looking at lyric translations to see if this stop-start synth snooze ever intimated anything about fluids. There are promising moments — “I want to come to you like wet friendly shower and seep” is in the ballpark — but otherwise Nu’est takes a Ga In opening and folds it vaguely heart-shaped. I played myself. 
[3]

Alfred Soto: If a dude’s gonna use love paint on me, I’m going to (a) pick the color (b) decide at what octave he’s going to sing the sweet nothings.
[4]

Madeleine Lee: The same palette as “Overcome” — dubstep squalls, lyrical imagery that’s almost too pretty, Baekho’s howl — applied with a softer touch. The chorus doesn’t stick as memorably when it’s less forceful, but it succeeds at capturing a similar tone with a different mood, and I’m happy to hear NU’EST continuing in this musical direction (even if privately I wish for more K-pop house like “R.L.T.L“).
[6]

Iain Mew: I’ve rarely heard a pop song sound so utterly frictionless — it’s impressive in its own way but leaves it with no sticking power at all.
[5]

Adaora Ede: Nu’est’s attempts to stand out from the masses in K-pop in the past few years always somehow integrate breakbeat stylistic elements i.e. dubstep drops. This time around, “Love Paint” is serving an all embracing Philly house x synth pop with a(nother) dwindling classical music interpolation that more could have been done with. Truly, the artistic reinvention of Nu’est for this concept in so many ways sounds pretty similar to the lurching non-melody of “Overcome”. But damn, despite the fact that the sleekness of the aesthetic is lost for staccato before the first verse, this sounds beautiful when it all culminates into before-their-time pop-R&B fusion, sans pretense.
[8]

Olivia Rafferty: The fluttering strings of the verse, the race of the beat, all give the impression of heart palpitations. The sweetness of those passages sit at odds with the run-up to the “drop” before the chorus, which seems a little bit melodramatic for the pace and intensity of the song. The chorus synths are strong and vivid, but come in only to accentuate, which leaves the initial feeling of lightness intact.
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: K-pop with Usher Raymond’s sense of cool. Works on every level. 
[8]