I mean, talk about heavily anticipated. The Selena Gomez + Blackpink collab “Ice Cream” finally dropped to a waiting online audience of millions but, in my opinion at least, ended up a messy splatter on the pavement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRXZj0DzXIA
The video is subbed in English
The Good
This video shows off Jisoo’s english – blinks will understand – which means that for this song at least, she isn’t at any sort of disadvantage compared to the other three and with the English speaking audience (which obvs is the target demographic)
Lisa’s rapping, already real good, is getting even better.
Pretty ladies, pretty clothes, pretty sets and all that…
The Bad
The song was vapid – the music is predictable and the lyrics, bland at best.
The Ice Cream video was clearly a mash up of a BP video and a Selena video. And while everyone looked like they were having fun, the overall impression is that they pretty much telephoned in their perfomances – especially Selena, Jennie and Rose.
This song might’ve been a better fit for other KPOP girl groups. No hate, but the bubbly sound is closer to Twice’s wheelhouse, than BP’s. Since ‘뚜두뚜두, BP’s songs have slowly but consistently departed from shiny bubblegum pop. I mean listen to this cover of How You Like That
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_656J62gYI
Overall
All in all, Ice Cream didn’t enrich BP’s discography. Didn’t exactly impoverish it either, and I suppose it was a savvy business decision to collab with Selena (although to call it a collab would probably be giving it too much credit. The video felt more like an extended TikTok duet to be honest).
Ice Cream was ultimately forgettable; an unfortunate sugar hiccup on the way to BP’s full album release.
UPDATE
I know that YG often releases behind the scenes videos of major BP music videos – and maybe I’m just reading too much into this – but the release of the b-t-s video for Ice Cream the day after the MV itself premiered? Well, it looks like some rallying of the audience might be needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8hS_W3BPE
For what it’s worth, this video actually confirmed what I thought about the original – two separate videos were mashed into one. Yes, that’s because of COVID (obvs) but that doesn’t make it any nicer. Instead, it just seems that Selena could really have been anyone, making this production a little too cynical and mercenary.
