The Singles Jukebox

No wait, THIS is the most ambitious crossov-

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Jessica Doyle: K-pop in general and SM Entertainment in particular have received so much (deserved) criticism for acting as if their non-Korean fans’ cultures (or skin tones) are comedy fodder. So let’s go ahead and celebrate when they do it right — as in, not only acknowledge but explicitly play to Super Junior’s Spanish-speaking fanbases. See what I mean in fancams of SuJu, Leslie Grace, and Play-N-Skillz (who don’t have a credit, but who were on the tour and appear briefly in the video) performing in Chile and Mexico, the audience joyfully filling in the chorus. Yeah, “Lo Siento” is kind of overstuffed (imagine if they had tried to do this with Kyuhyun, Ryeowook, Sungmin, and Kangin) and generic, Lord Byronchul’s rap is disposable, and the choreography on “perfect body” is eye-roll-worthy. But I am wholly in favor of a future that includes teleprompters listing three languages, Latino artists from Texas and Florida getting calls from Seoul with paychecks attached, and Leslie calling Donghae a dog and Siwon a fish.
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Jonathan Bogart: In contrast probably to the rest of the blurbers (and definitely the googlers) here, I don’t know anything about K-pop and even less about Super Junior, but I’ve been a fan of Dominican-American singer Leslie Grace since her 2012 major-label debut covering the Shirelles in Spanglish bachata. Watching her breezily and sensitively sing her way through the various roles which radio-friendly Latin Pop has to offer a talented and eager-to-please young singer who never ever actually catches fire beyond the limited stateside “Tropical” audience has been an exercise in both keen enjoyment (she’s made some terrific pop) and keen disappointment (which has mostly gone unheard, hanging out in the lower reaches of the mainstream Hot Latin chart when it appears there at all). 2018, however, appears to be the year she leaves her teenpop past behind. Not only does she take the maturer role in the chorus here, keeping her cool and brushing off every attempt by the Super Junior boys to ply her with devotion, but her own latest single is a brilliant tempo-switching reggaeton that takes the sexual metaphor of the rhythm entirely literally. I can only hope the exposure she gets from this collaboration can help take her to the next level on her home turf: she’s easily the best thing about this overstuffed show-tune disco.
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Will Adams: True to the global concept of the collaboration, Play-N-Skillz’s instrumental is a blend of a lot: some shuffly reggaeton, trap breakdown, Neptunes-era *NSync, K-pop bells and whistles. While the sounds are impressively managed, and there’s definitely potential for this template of tri-lingual collabs, I’m just not detecting much chemistry between Super Junior and Leslie Grace; when they shout “WE CAN TAKE IT SLOW!” together, they play to the audience, not each other.
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Alex Clifton: I want a song about “taking it slow” to, er, take it a little bit slower; somehow the tension between the upbeat backing and the lyrical content doesn’t really do it for me. It’s catchy as all hell, and Leslie Grace’s chorus integrates well into the song, but the concept could’ve done with some retooling to make it a little more fluid.
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Claire Biddles: K-pop with a Latin spin is a cute idea, and “Lo Siento” is so charming. The potentially clunkiness of multiple lead vocalists and languages is executed effortlessly. Also, I always promised myself I would never get into K-pop because of the sheer volume of potential crushes, but I just image searched the boy responsible for the breathy-voiced rap at the end and, well.
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Thomas Inskeep: Talk about transnational pop: K-Pop with a tropical flair, a male/female duet, and lyrics in Korean, Spanish, and English. And thanks to producers Play-N-Skillz, it bops along more than pleasantly. “Lo Siento” oozes summer. 
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