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vskpop · 7 years

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May 2017 ⋅ Not so fresh

Lonely - SISTAR

Why does this keep happening?! Can girl groups stop releasing amazing songs that are THEIR LAST EVER BECAUSE THEY ARE DISBANDING?

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AL1 - SEVENTEEN

Forgive me, God of k-pop, for I have sinned. I said I wanted dark Seventeen and another Highlight, but now that I have it I really don’t want it at all.

I will preface everything I’m about to say by reiterating that Seventeen are probably my favourite third generation group and that I like Don’t Wanna Cry and the mini album in general.

However, the truth is my expectations were too high and I was disappointed by this comeback. As much as I love Woozi, Don’t Wanna Cry is the most unoriginal thing he’s ever produced. It isn’t just that it sounds like a Chainsmokers song: some parts are almost identical to Closer, and not in a good way, if there even is a good way to be Chainsmokers copycats.

The more I listen to the song, the more I like it and I love how Seventeen made it theirs, but this doesn’t change that this song doesn’t feel remotely as unique and personal as their previous releases.

I’m still mostly ok with Seventeen moving away from their bubbly, cute image, but not if it means rounding down to the blandest, trendiest thing they can come up with. This is pretty much the same complaint I had about Winner’s Really Really: it annoys me that a group with a specific identity would abandon it to go as generic as possible.

What made the comeback bearable for me is how beautiful and elegant their live performances are: it’s always hard to make thirteen people look good on a tiny stage, but with this choreography Seventeen have really outdone themselves. I don’t know if I’m more in love with Woozi’s, Joshua’s or Jeonghan’s solo moments, not to mention The8 starting his section with a somersault because why not. A good thing - even though not especially to my taste, obviously - is the rest of the album goes well with Don’t Wanna Cry, rather than being jarringly different and going back to “old” Seventeen. The performance team delivers a banger as usual with Swimming Fool, and for once the vocal team’s song Habit is a lovely powerballad (instead of being the most boring song in the album).

It’s not coincidental that the “American” sound of the song came with a video filmed around Los Angeles. I’m not sure where they got the idea of going the minimalistic, tumblr aesthetic route with their video and the performance styling. It’s not my favourite, but I don’t hate it either: it matches the song concept and it isn’t an insult to the human eye.

Overall this is a good comeback, but it’s hardly what I wanted from Seventeen: I find myself missing the pastels and the happiness, which is what made me like them in the first place. On the other hand, I guess I’ve seen worse rebranding (see iKON) and at least it’s clear how it makes sense for them to change direction. I’ll keep my hopes up for the repackaging.

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New Kids: Begin - iKON

Now for something I really, really, really hated: iKON’s so-called rebranding. New Kids: Begin is their first comeback after a year and a half of touring and postponing. As the “new kids” suggests, this release should signal a change in direction for iKON or, as their promotional material said, a “new beginning” and “new style”.

I couldn’t imagine what a new style for iKON would look like and ...it doesn’t. It’s not a new era at all. They look and sound like an uninspired, inferior version of what they did in Rhythm Ta and Anthem. They’re doing exactly what they were doing before, but they’re not doing it well.

Both title tracks, Bling Bling and B-Day, are on the nonsensical bravado banger side of iKON’s repertoire.

Even after trying to make myself like it, I really detest Bling Bling. The instrumentals are ok for the first minute, but after that things get way too repetitive and boring, especially because entire song is rapped (or sing-rapped) and the singers get no space to add some texture to it. It could have been a better song, but it was over for me the moment I heard Junhoe being autotuned out of existence.

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B-Day has a lot of YG’s recent material mixed in: it has the atmosphere of Bobby’s Holup, and the trippy melody of Big Bang’s Bae Bae and Fxxk It. It’s a much more interesting and captivating song than Bling Bling, which is why, obviously, it won’t be the promoted track.

The “bling bling” theme feels incredibly out of fashion; every time they say “champagne” I shudder. The big shiny cars feel far from anything that iKON would do - just think of the beat-up they were driving in Dumb & Dumber.

This kind of concept only worked when they looked like idiots playing dress-up. Even Bobby, who is the clear inspiration for the concept (last year’s Holup! music video is B-Day and Bling Bling), seems slightly uncomfortable with the part he’s been given. The other members don’t get to show off their vocal skills in the best cases, and seem on the verge of walking out in the worst. The videos are awkward, and the live performances are a secondhand embarrassment extravaganza.

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YG didn’t even try to hide the fact that they’re trying to make iKON into the new Big Bang; the issue is that Big Bang did the crazy bangers with cryptic, super-high-budget videos when they were eight years into their career and not at their sophomore release.

It makes no sense for YG to rebrand them as this high-rolling, pseudo hip-hoppy group when so much of their success depended on how they mixed genres and looked like your average silly classmate, which is why the goofier parts of both videos work so well.

I can hardly find something that works well in this comeback. The songs are mediocre, the styling and concept are abysmal, the rebranding is ridiculous. The members that aren’t the two rappers basically disappear in the background (not that this is B.I or Bobby’s fault, to be clear). As much as I love them, they are mediocre dancers: I am baffled that they would focus their comeback campaign on the fact that “hey, they’re dancing now!” when literally nobody asked them to, and they did perfectly well without choreos being a predominant part of their image.

This is supposedly the beginning of a series of 2017 iKON comebacks, and I have a terrible feeling about them if this is the road that they’re taking.

I also want to mention how idiotic I found the fact that, a year and a half after debut, the members of iKON got new “English-sounding” names when everyone had already learned the Korean ones. I will never in my life call Jinhwan “Jay” or Yunhyung “Song”. NEVER.

199X - TRIPLE H

I’ll start by saying that the video for Triple H’s debut 365 Fresh is all sorts of no-no and comes with the biggest trigger warning I think I’ve ever issued for a k-pop video. It’s ironic that the only part I found refreshing (spoiler: it’s the threesome!) was the one that caused a stir and not, say, the sexual assault, the attempted suicide or all the other things that were glamourized when they really shouldn’t.

Anyway. If Triple H is another attempt from Cube to save whatever is left of the company, I will gladly take it. I’ve loved Hyuna for a long time, even through all of her basically-naked performances, and it is well documented that E’Dawn is one of my favourite members of Pentagon ...and I guess I don’t hate Hui.

365 Fresh hardly has anything fresh about it: it sounds almost exactly like Bruno Mars’ 24k Magic, and even that was not exactly original material. The good thing is that, even if it’s something we’ve all heard before a million times, it doesn’t lose its earworm power in this iteration. It’s the perfect summer song, especially in comparison to Hyuna’s summer comeback from last year.

Hui’s voice really manages to balance out Hyuna’s and E’Dawn’s timbres, and overall the balance of singing, rapping and hook-repeating works amazingly well. It was one step away from being too repetitive.

Hyuna’s charisma doesn’t need an introduction, but it’s cool to see Hui and E’Dawn hold their own. It’s especially surprising to see E’Dawn in the role of the beefcake, when that’s the last thing one would think of him seeing him next to the rest of Pentagon (for me he’s always been the one most likely to be involved in a drug scandal, if anything). I love that Hyuna got to wear actual clothes for an entire round of promotions.

It was surprising to me that they wouldn’t just come out with one single, and I thought the rest of the mini-album would be a bore; I was glad to be proven wrong. In just a handful of song, they incorporate a ton of retro references and stay interesting and cohesive throughout. My favourite has to be 80’s-flavour ballad Girl Girl Girl.

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Signal - Twice

The more I like a Twice song, the more everyone else will hate it, and I ve learned to live with this fact ever since Knock Knock. I’m so delighted that, while they’re still not straying too far from their signature sexy baby concept, Twice managed to pull off such an unusual song.

I don’t remember the last time I’ve heard such a prominent bass line, and I love that the structure of the song is not super-conventional. It’s hard to think that in general they are one of the most traditional girl groups in k-pop (not that that’s a bad thing).

I saw a lot of criticism about the fact that it’s not a vocally complex song (when have Twice ever had virtuoso songs?!) but I would give that up any day for a more equally split song: girls who never got to speak like Sana, Tzuyu and Mina got actual parts and all the others will be just fine.

I’m also happy to see that for once the video has a proper story, rather than being about just them being pretty. I loved the 70’s outfits and the alien storyline, and I thought even the superpowers part was done really quirkily. On the other hand, I was fairly annoyed that JYP had to stick the damn schoolgirl concept in there when it was completely superfluous.

I also love Three Times a Day and Only (which, by the way, was written by Yeeun) from the mini-album.

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Rapid fire round

Cactus - A.C.E.

I know it’s been done before, but whenever a k-pop group goes full 90’s eurodance, it always feels like the first time. I wouldn’t have given A.C.E. a single listen if the song hadn’t been called Cactus - the best title of the year - but I’m so glad I did, even just for their already iconic performances in short shorts.

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Puppet - Marmello

In a world of cute concepts, I don’t know how successful a girl band will ever be, but I will enjoy it while it lasts. I can’t bring myself to pretend it’s not a super-conventional and predictable song, but I’m so happy to see some girls playing instruments I don’t even care (and yes, I checked, they can actually play them).

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Shangri-La - VIXX

What an amazing mini album VIXX put out. I haven’t been particularly into them at any point except when they came out with Dynamite, and I don’t think I ever will, but I love every single song on Shangri-La. I’ve been complaining about k-pop really converging on the Chainsmokers/tropical trend, but it really works well mixed with VIXX’s style. Also: THE FAN DANCE.