The Singles Jukebox

What’s Korean for “Vuelve”? This! Or “Dwilo,” if you trust online translation.

[Video][Website]
[6.40]

Scott Mildenhall: It’s like a single from a boyband in a film set in the future, but now. Note to One Direction: more maximalism, less faxed-in revisions.
[7]

Brad Shoup: “Vuelve” is prime cutout pop, only Luis Miguel is a Big Deal and thus disqualified. I’m of the opinion that we’ve run out of sounds, leaving our musicians to be top-notch conservators. Plus, I can’t be so selfish as to want a killer melody imprisoned in one song; to do so is to ignore giant swaths of hip-hop and electronic music. Still, it’s on SHINee to justify their swipe: that arcing “dre-e-am gir-l” is enough.   I love the tension between that dutiful slap-bass and the downcast disco strokes, that bummer of a feeling you get when you crest and realize how much space is above you. These assholes did it again.
[8]

Sonya Nicholson: The best parts of this song are plagiarized from a much better song, so I have to give it a 0. Beyond that, between the glitch effects in the video, their accompanying sound effects, and the sudden hits of compressed sound on Wolf, I have to wonder whether there are too many hard drugs in the SM editing booth. Stick with the dance version of the video, it has really great choreography. 
[0]

Edward Okulicz: A couple of months ago, I rather liked SHINee’s “Dazzling Girl.” Today, the only thing I can remember is the chorus which went “DAZZLING GIRL! DAZZLING LOVE! AY-AY-AY!” and that it had a rather good rap bit. With considerable confidence today I am saying that in a few months the only thing I will remember about this song is “DREAM GIRL!” but that doesn’t even remotely matter while it’s playing right now.
[8]

Iain Mew: SHINee handle the big chorus. The details of the production, which sounds more overwhelming and huge and varied every time I listen, handles everything else. So the song goes something like [intro creeps in from the distance]-rumble-rumble-strum-strum-whooooooosh-strum-rumble-strumble-belch-fizzzzzzzzzzz-[DREAM GIRL!]-rattle-strum-strum-click-fizzzzzzz-[DREAM GIRL!]-[apparent bridge]-[actual bridge with splashes and take-off]-[DREAM GIRL!]. And it’s great.
[8]

Katherine St Asaph: Making Luis Miguel’s “Vuelve” more like a Kylie song is a plus (your opinion may vary). Adding a “SHINee’s back!” drop and rap snippet are minuses. A K-pop conglomerate ripping off “Vuelve” is a thinkpiece I’m not going to write. A rendition of “Vuelve” is awesome, by any name.
[7]

Will Adams: The funk guitar is wielded quite well, especially on the chorus. Unfortunately, that’s where “Dream Girl” falters, cutting off its titular hook in favor of… a part that forgot to be written? Ad-lib space? Hard to tell, but that funk guitar is yearning to underpin something there, and it’s left hanging.
[6]

Ian Mathers: As an ignorant Westerner who can never understand k-pop lyrics, the verses are nearly always placeholders; I’m going to fall for the song or not on the basis of the chorus. This one just seems yelly to me; there are worse things to listen to, but it never really grabbed me.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Now this is what the new Timberlake record should sound like, and what Maroon 5 abandoned after 2007: clipped guitars, absurd choral harmonies, and brevity, sweet brevity. Not futuresex, perhaps, but dig that lovesound.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: My reaction to “Dream Girl” is pretty much the same as my reaction to every SHINee single I’ve heard over the past two years. I love everything they smoosh into the verses – here, the disco throb, the way they layer the vocals, that guitar that pops up every once in awhile, the rap breakdown – to the point this might be my favorite set of SHINee verses yet. But man, what a let down of a chorus. One of the group’s big flaws…but one of the reasons I think they are super popular in Japan…is they try recreating the hooks of bad J-Pop boy bands like Arashi or KAT-TUN . They lack all the charm found in the verses…though those verses are so good they prop the song up a whole.
[7]