The Singles Jukebox

Here ends our day of saying how we feel…

[Video][Website]
[6.50]

Mo Kim: I do like that!
[9]

Alfred Soto: A fruitylicious ode to “Toxic”-era Britney with electric guitar riffs, horns, sampled bubbles, and call and response vocals, courtesy of one of South Korea’s best girl groups.
[7]

Madeleine Lee: From the year when “Alone” was everywhere, I have one enduring association with the song: taking an elevator in Seoul with a woman who pressed play on her phone just before the doors opened, then strutted out to the wah guitar intro blasting freely. Sistar have been pumping out the bright yellow summer jams for the last few years, but their legacy is still songs about the complexities of being a woman in love that you can strut to. With its honking sax riff, no-nonsense beat, and equally no-nonsense lyrics (“I resent God for meeting you”), “I Like That” is a little bit of both.
[8]

Ryo Miyauchi: What arrives after the build is not an onslaught of sax as I anticipated but one deep, delightful bass line. “I Like That” thrives on sharp turns amidst all that fluff, and the bass slap gives the hook a needed push. It’s a rather subtle thing to throw in, but it makes all the difference.
[6]

Brad Shoup: That stutter effect threatens to refine the focus to a sharp point. It’s still rapid as hell, but it doesn’t zip. It’s like “Toxic” formulated for hip-hop, which maybe explains why the rap insinuates itself so well.
[6]

Cassy Gress: It’s an obvious stylistic choice — for a song about “you said you love me and I don’t believe you but I really want to” — to have a big dreamy musical moment on the actual words “I like/love you.” The problem is that it breaks up the song too much; it goes from a great club beat, somewhere around 150 BPM, to homecoming dance at sevveennttyy fiiiiiiiiive and then we’re bouncing at 150 again. And it does that in every single chorus — how are you supposed to actually dance to that part?
[5]

Adaora Ede: The teaser images and videos for “I Like That” implied that K-pop summer queens Sistar might play with some darker themes. What I hoped for slightest flirtation with the deconstruction of Sino-Korean stereotypes through the gaze of Orientalism. What I got was a summer song. Much to the chagrin of both the Korean public and I, Sistar did decide to forgo the serviceable bubblegum pop sound for proto-nightcore-cum-brassbeat, which isn’t as interesting as it sounds. “I Like That” does contain the inner workings of that of your typical Sistar track: Hyolyn’s noteworthy vocal acrobatics, Soyou’s airily sung verses, Bora’s call-and-response stanzas, Dasom’s apparent lack of involvement in anything-. But it harks back to a more lavish musical time in K-pop. 2009-2012, when songs focused more on structure than trend. As Starship Entertainment does best, the veil of supposed glamour over “I Like That” is so easily cheapened and dated by sax flares and canned handclaps.
[5]

Iain Mew: I have to appreciate a song with a backdrop that covers honking sax, distant nu-metal guitar chug and an echoed ‘ehhhhhhh’ reflecting off into the silver distance and makes them sound a natural fit. Even one which doesn’t do much with the results apart from plant its chorus in my mind.
[6]