The Singles Jukebox

“Dialectic tension” now in the running to become the Jukebox’s motto…

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[5.29]

Alfred Soto: The chorus mashes Kylie and Vanity 6 with glee, and the syncopation works against the title metaphor. See? Dialectic tension.
[7]

Sonya Nicholson: Rainbow are a thinking person’s K-pop group, but not for much the group has actually done. (Though there was a criticism of idol-dom’s exploitation machine buried under the visuals in Cha Cha, and the choreography to their first Japanese single was based on Swan Lake.) Musically, they’re a more-neglected KARA; offstage, the group’s collective IQ is high and they’re known for incisive answers to interview questions and for opening well-received photography exhibits, etc. The gap between the group’s apparent potential and their agency’s lack of vision/effort/time for them has been galling for fans, and those voices of complaint are perhaps what have lead us to INNOCENT, their current mini, which features not only that overused signifier of high-mindedness Black Swan but also Pierrot, a song whose title hearkens back to K-pop’s blueprint for the idol-turned-artiste, Kim Wan Sun. While very on-brand, the result is unfortunately not very fresh, and as of this writing they’ve once again been shelved by their agency. I want to believe in Rainbow, who are models of calm-intelligent-adult women and had a terrific run of singles in 2011 up to and including their ill-considered turn to Rainbow [manic] PIXIE [dream girl]; but they’ll have to do better than this.  
[4]

Micha Cavaseno: While the lyrics subscribe to as absurdly a faithful read of the more silly with age film, the music is a ridiculous romp of horror electro that recalls of all things, Rockwell. I can’t with this song yo. It skates the edge of absurdity and delicacy with gratuitous pleasure and I can’t be sure if they mean to do it, but they do it so well.
[7]

Jessica Doyle: I found a version that clocked in at 3:09 and got my hopes up that they’d cut the first minute and started out of the gate with “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” the first part of the singing that seems to have any real energy. Or make the “Mirror, mirror” part the chorus and the current chorus the prechorus. Or eliminate everything between the post-rap high note and the final chorus. It’s more inventive than almost everything else I’ve heard out of K-pop so far this year, and I’m sorry it didn’t get more time in the spotlight, but it’s hard to enjoy a song I keep wanting to take apart and reassemble.
[5]

Iain Mew: The synths stalk with threat, but then it all goes a bit Liberty X clunky. Not even the most fun song to quote “Mirror, mirror on the wall” in the past month.
[4]

Brad Shoup: Surely this started as a ballad; the rhythmic flourishes — the synthfunk squiggles and dubstep cameo — hang uncomfortably, like on a hired hand’s remix. 
[3]

Mo Kim: “When we released the song,” confessed one member in an interview, “we were very scared. What will happen if the fans don’t like it?” Coming back with a song that throws everything you’ve done into question is a risk anyway you slice it; having that song be your first in almost two years poses even bigger challenges. But “Black Swan” works because it’s about the insecurity of performance and image and identity, things that are inherently unstable but even more in the bizarro funhouse world of K-pop, and it doesn’t spare us the psychological fuckery of evolving in the limelight. The lyrics navigate a metamorphosis that’s inevitable, a metamorphosis that stems from a desire to be accepted but renders its object fundamentally different. The introduction is measured, thoughts emerging one staccato syllable at a time: “Who is the reflection in the foggy mirror if it’s not me?” Jaekyung wonders before the chorus spins into a twisted disco groove, synths screeching with witching-hour glee, voices spinning long notes into sharp, clawed longing. We get a second verse that wraps its fear in bravado; we get that same squelching chorus; we get a slight dubstep bridge where Woori tosses off a few lines and Hyunyoung plays her foil with one well-placed high note. It’s all quite self-aware, this act of holding a mirror up to your audience, and if listeners recoiled at their reflections, Rainbow still gets the last laugh with their conclusion, an image of “dancing on top of a moonlit lake.” The rest of “Black Swan” grasps at a lot of fun ideas, some of which stick better than others, but that final moment is, in the song’s own words, perfect.
[7]