The Singles Jukebox

Are we blown away?

[Video][Website]
[6.75]

Madeleine Lee: If you’ve never heard “Windy Day” before, I don’t want to spoil it for you, so go listen to it now. Then come back here so we can talk about how good it is at leading its listener down the garden path, with a disposable verse and a chorus that’s all sunshine and flowers, before it blasts you away with a power droning string hook out of nowhere. There have been two major girl group trends in K-pop over the last year: a revived interest in the “pure” image (see: GFriend, Lovelyz), and the “girl crushes” that not only appeals, as usual, to men, but makes (assumed straight) fangirls fall in love with their coolness and charisma (see: the recent uptick in girl groups covering boy group choreography). While this might seem like a dichotomy, Oh My Girl have released a pure single and a girl crush single back to back, and now they’ve given us one that’s both. “Windy Day” thrives on the contrast created by putting these two styles next to each other, and on the thrill of making a connection between them.
[8]

Jessica Doyle: I’ve started to rush to Oh My Girl singles in anticipation of those unexpected delights that startle me and keep my attention. With “Cupid” it’s not so much the marching-band drums themselves as the combination of the marching-band drums and that “I see you,” which makes the song the love child of a marching band and “Piano in the Dark,” and if a group is willing to start with the love child of a marching band and “Piano in the Dark,” certainly let’s see what else is on offer. There’s “Closer,” their blandest single to date — yes, well-constructed and a nice platform for inventive choreography, but nonetheless — which still provides the surges in the background and Seunghee’s sudden “Can you hear my cry.” “Liar Liar” is a series of leaps: from Binnie’s “Andhwe, andhwe” to Seunghee’s “roller coaster” to Mimi’s “Pinocchio,” with the collective’s yells as the connective tissue. (While I probably can’t count Seunghee’s face as an unexpected delight, I’d be, er, lying if I left it out.) And now there’s “Windy Day,” which starts out as the coronation music for Actualfax Fairy Princess Hyojung and then gleefully changes course — it’s nothing but the unexpected. The lyrics, the video, and the creeping guitar all suggest uncertainty, but “Windy Day” works because it’s a journey (to be fair, “Closer” is as well), an embrace of the uncertainty, finding excitement in getting swept up.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: Musically it’s like 3 songs mashed into one. Lyrically it’s too cutesy-poo by half. 
[4]

Katie Gill: There are three distinct parts to “Windy Day”: the bizarrely delicate beginning, the bog-standard good harmonies, girl group chorus, and that vaguely Arabian, vaguely “Come Out and Play” riff, which is easily my favorite part. The overall composition is less of a full song and more of three pieces shoved together to make a song. Still, for all it’s slightly disjointed nature, the end product is something pretty darn good and an annoyingly perfect earworm.
[6]

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: Saccharine folk that somehow turns into an ABBA outtake and then it goes into a chaotic A phrygian post-chorus. Yet it all still feels native to OMG’s universe. Man, i love my K-pop wild, but i truly flip out when that madness is this well executed.
[8]

Alfred Soto: The tinkling piano and harmonies suggest dew drops on flowers or, at worst, too strong a plug-in deodorizer: Febreze, like that. The harmonies are still a bit much on the chorus, but the guitar helps. 
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: “Windy Day” solves the problem that was at the center of EXID’s “L.I.E” by making the stylistic transitions flow really smoothly, so nothing ever feels jarring or awkward. Alas, Oh My Girl could really use something interesting to happen here, as none of these change-ups leave an impression beyond “oooo, something different!,” and the end result is a skippy song that… well just skips ahead.
[4]

Mo Kim: Oh My Girl has quietly emerged over the last year as one of the most intriguing acts in Korean pop, but more importantly as one of the most delightful. “Windy Day” unfurls like a kite string on a warm May afternoon; the strums that set up the beginning weave a light tapestry for Arin and Seunghee to trade lines over before the song hits a slower wind, Yooa’s honeyed vocals working well with Binnie’s gently-posted question of whether her spring has finally found its way back to her. Then there’s that gust of a chorus, strings and vocal melodies and surprisingly prog-metal guitar chords punching upwards and upwards until we soar into the clouds, where a stormier collection of harmonies meets us. And that’s all before we hit the eye of the storm, an earworm of an Arabian Nights riff with choreography to match. But it’s the eight voices that center a ride that in the wrong hands could be vertigo-inducing, riding the track with boundless conviction, playfulness, and joy. 
[9]