“Real-time popular searched keyword, bro.”
[Video][Website]
[5.50]
Michaela Drapes: So I used to get my hair cut in Chinatown, and now I go to a Japanese joint in the New School/NYU student ghetto, so believe me when I tell you that I have had almost all of these dudes’ haircuts at some point in the past five years — even the platinum anime ‘do — but not the fauxhawks. This factoid is indicative of my response to this track — pretty much unmitigated glee, especially for the dance keiretsu Mortal Kombat meets West Side Story video. I’m not entirely sure I’d listen to this again, but the first time sure was a fun ride.
[7]
Katherine St Asaph: My God, it’s a fucking Andru Donalds track interpreted by boy-banders who love LMFAO, 3OH!3 and other bands with names like trolls. Music is hurtling toward this being cool — give the States two years, if that — and I don’t understand. Like, what the fuck is pop even doing?
[4]
Pete Baran: I originally thought this was called Narnia, and thought it might be a through the back of the wardrobe Korean translation of the Backstreet Boys. Not much is lost in the swish between the fur coats to get to this, but I’m not going to the New Kids On The Blockstreet Boys tour and this seems superfluous to me.
[4]
John Seroff: This cartoon blunderbuss of a track recalls Pitbull with its polyglot silliness (Koringrish? Englean?) spiced with nonthreatening machismo, hip hop signifiers and clubbish intention. As with Mr. Worldwide before them, Block B’s knucklehead attitude transcends language. Luckily, the same goes for their overriding amiability.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Go heavy be gone with it, Go heavy be gone with it, Go heavy be gone with it.
[2]
Jer Fairall: Sounding no less ridiculous than the Backstreet Boys or NSync ever did whenever they tried acting tough, these guys at least have the good sense to translate part of their main lyrical hook into literal baby talk, undercutting its posturing with an acknowledgement of its own ludicrousness. At the core, though, is still a soulless, mechanical production straight out of the Max Martin playbook, an aesthetic I’m no closer to understanding the appeal of now than I ever was in its heyday.
[4]
Iain Mew: The crushing synth hook does a lot of the work here through sheer brute force, but Block B and their various inventive different ways of shouting at us and at each other make the most of its potential for fun.
[7]
Frank Kogan: Screeching brakes rain down from the heavens, voices stick out their tongues in mockery, syllables are flung across airwave and Web. Meanwhile, in real life, something’s happening to Block B that’s not translating to my American ears. One member is in the hospital, another has shaved his head in mortification, TV is afraid to show ’em, and all for a minor or nonexistent lack of decorum that doesn’t even come close to the contentiousness this music promises.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Essentially “Sexy and I Know It” without the punchline. That’s good enough for me. Not that this thing doesn’t make its own joke gravy (“I’m a real-time popular searched keyword, bro”), but like damn near anything released by, say, Pitbull, it never challenges its own hubris. Zico’s production settles for a Mr. Worldwide-style klaxon-synth riff and one JB scream; the guys (rarely breaking from the monotone, even in the sung bits) do the major lifting, with weird tangents like “head, shoulders, knees and toes” and, it seems, a reference to the pesticide truck. I’m entirely rewarding the approach, and am hopeful the next single gives me something worth hearing, rather than reading.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: If we must have boy bands, let them be goofily aggressive and pile weird throat-scraping sounds into the corners of the mix rather than attempt soulful, eye-moistening balladry. This is an entirely selfish stance, of course; none of their ballads are ever aimed at me, whereas their invitations to dance and/or rumble are.
[7]