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Review: Blackpink (with Selena Gomez) - Ice Cream

Back in 2016, it felt as though Blackpink was unstoppable. 'Playing with Fire' and 'Stay' are still probably some of my favorite modern day girl group songs. They continued their solid singles run with 'As if its your last' and 'Ddu-du Ddu-Du' (did I spell that right?). However, Kill this love stood as a minor misstep and I was still looking forward to their 2020 material.

Between the cultural appropriation and the buzz-kill chorus, I found it hard to fully enjoy the strength of 'How you like that' (the melodic first verse). But in hindsight, I should just have been happy with what I got, because I barely made it through 'Ice Cream' even once.

The moment the trap beat hit, I felt disappointment. Trap can be used for the sentiments of 'cool' and to show individual persona quite well. But I have never seen it work in what I expect was intended to be a summer love song. I hold that YG and producer Teddy Park have been under-utilizing Blackpink's excellent vocals. And while the English was well delivered, I felt that this could be any modern American song, not something unique to Blackpink. Most of the song's verses function as 'Selena ft. Jennie and Lisa', and I felt a better usage of Rosé and Jisoo's vocals could have helped. And with the exception of the final (cringe-worthy) Lisa rap which was okay, there was nothing in the song keeping from falling asleep.

On first listen, I could not even recognize the chorus, it literally is two English refrains. Blackpink and Selena do their best to sell the idea, but being worse than jarring, this song manages to be boring and annoying. It may prove catchy as time goes on, mostly due to Lisa's rap and the occasional strong delivery of the verses. But this song currently plays out as a trendy mess.

Score: 4/10