Written by
Heartbreak has been well represented in recent Latin pop. The Marías worked through a breakup between bandmates on Submarine; Bad Bunny ached his way through a lonely summer on Un Verano Sin Ti, and Shakira turned a highly publicized split into a manifesto of self-renewal on Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran. Karol G made her own contribution to the canon with 2023’s Mañana Será Bonito, channeling anger and sadness into confessional songwriting after her breakup with Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA. In cutting verses, she detailed crying into Gucci handkerchiefs, stalking Instagram stories, and hiding emotional wounds under layers of makeup. Mañana Será Bonito was proof of the Colombian singer’s talent for turning heartbreak into diva-level performances, whether bravely holding back tears or going on a rampage at the club.
NO ME ARREPIENTO DE SENTIR TANTO aims to capture a similar intensity and breadth of feeling. A post-breakup emotional rollercoaster, it careens from cursing (“Te Llevas To”) to longing (“Maybe”) to obsessive rumination (“Con Quién Andará?), all over tightly sequenced, shifting passages of moody electronics, cumbia, and guitar-led melodies. But this time, that titular surfeit of emotion feels not so much overwhelming as scattered.
No score yet, be the first to add.
Opener “Te llevas To” sets the wistful mood, musing on a lover who betrayed her and confronting feelings of absence so profound that the sky itself threatens to disappear. But Karol G’s writing falls back on cliché (“You asked me to say yes and I said yes/When we talked about the dreams we wanted to fulfill”) and the EDM-inspired cookie-cutter beat doesn’t do anything to offset the lyrics’ banality. The same problem plagues “Maybe” and “Bebiendo Lágrimas,” where piercing, wounded vocals (that, in their frayed edges, efficiently convey an emotional hole of pleading and self-pity) aren’t enough to redeem lackluster material.
Neither are appearances from Drake and Bruno Mars. When Drake jokingly reprises his “I want a Latina” line from “New Bestie,” it’s repellant rather than charming. An interview snippet where an unidentified man says his ideal partner should be “kind and Latina” is just as off-putting, further blurring the line between cultural stereotypes and cringe couples comedy. “Still,” sung entirely in English and drenched in chintzy synths, invokes another generic image of heartache: sleeping in your ex’s sweater. The Bruno Mars–assisted ballad makes a case for vulnerability and hope, but its message of recovery sounds more like mass-produced Latin evangelical music than an enduring romantic hit.
NO ME ARREPIENTO DE SENTIR TANTO picks up with the titanic single “MATADORA.” Over an old-school reggaeton beat, lifted by rounded synthetic trumpets, Karol G is back at being the bichota that can do it all—cry about her ex, enjoy a memorable one-night stand, and fill the dancefloor, all in one fell swoop. Tied to a church-organ intro that ingeniously evokes a wedding march (of a wedding that, obviously, never happened), “For u My lova” is a sunny, Caribbean-tinged number where Karol G’s songwriting comes back into focus in verses that rhapsodize over an affair so deep it invented love itself. Backed by Spanish singers rusowsky and Judeline, wistfully yearning dancehall tune “BbY WOW” hits the mark that the Drake and Bruno Mars collaborations missed, gliding over a lilting sample of Cordell Scatta Burrell’s classic “Coolie Dance” riddim.
“Con quién andará?,” “Eclipse,” and “Después de ti” are equally compelling. Kicking off with a pitch-shifted sample of the chorus of British Spanish singer Jeanette’s 1974 single “Por Qué Te Vas,”“Con quién andará?” exposes her obsessive doubt as she wonders if her ex is with someone new over plunging dembow beats softened by muted piano chords. Despair and defeat crystallize in “Eclipse,” where, brooding over rounds of tequila, she sounds more alone than ever as she asks the moon: “If your thing with the sun is to go your separate ways/Why are there sometimes eclipses?” And close “Después de ti,” anchored by the warmly familiar guitar of Cigarettes After Sex bandleader Greg Gonzalez, aches with a sorrow so deep you want to check in on her well-being.
“I’d rather suffer because I lived too much—because I loved too much, because I had too much fun—than to not have had those experiences, you know? I’m inviting everyone to be a little more dramatic, a little more extra,” she said about the album in a recent interview with ELLE. NO ME ARREPIENTO DE SENTIR TANTO reaches for that spirit, but can’t quite commit to it. On “Bebiendo Lágrimas,” Karol G sings about giving her love story a proper funeral. Her album comes close to capturing that drama—if only she had thrown herself a more lavish send-off.
