The Singles Jukebox

Does a [6.20] count as stanning? Who can say…

[Video]
[6.20]

David Sheffieck: The LOONA meme has so far been more memorable than the LOONA singles, but this might be the point where that relationship flips. “Butterfly” packs in hooks but doesn’t overload itself, and the chorus sounds like DJ Snake giving pop a chance — which surprisingly turns out to be a great idea. If they can keep this up they might start to match the hype.
[7]

Iain Mew: Sometimes I want a song, and sometimes I’m happy with an expressive wash of sounds that cascade over any structure, words set loose and floating around as the next best thing to the flight they invoke. This is one of the latter times and then some.
[8]

Alex Clifton: There are moments in “Butterfly” that just soar unexpectedly, like the pitch-shifted “fly like a butterfly” in the chorus. Every time it hits my arms feel a little lighter, like I might ascend myself. A song about flying should convince you that such a thing is possible, that you too are going to take off and accomplish your dreams. I think LOONA has succeeded here without going too twee (a difficult line when writing about butterflies specifically).
[7]

Iris Xie: Wow, if you actually enchanted the holographic ’90s butterfly clips I had as a child and made them sentient, I think it would be this song. LOONA continue isolating the highest pitched parts and amping up the woozy house aspects of Grimes’s output, but that only helps hone the girlish, but not childish, wonder that is present here. I am slightly disappointed that the vocal track makes it sound like there’s only one single voice rather than twelve unique voices, and there could be better usage of the harmonies, but the instrumental does the heavy lifting here. The three hooks of “fly like a butterfly / I better be around you / wings, wings” weave in and out of the drops, sonically conveying the theme as the notes go higher and higher. However, what stands out to me is that “Butterfly” really lays K-pop and its genre tropes bare — there’s a substantial force behind this song that actually communicates the feeling of being commanded to pay attention and listen to LOONA, and if you know K-pop, you know exactly what is happening in each section of the song performance-wise, right down to the hand gestures and winks. If you do well in biding those instructions, you will be rewarded by being grabbed and thrown into the group’s particular dreamscape. Here, this is emphasized through the surprisingly substantial fierceness of the drops, which repeats throughout the song. I’ve been listening to K-pop for several years now, but I don’t think it’s ever been so evident to me until this song what the genre tries to accomplish — a deep grab for your attention, within every possible method, but always starting with the song.
[7]

Ryo Miyauchi: The climactic release has been important for LOONA songs at least since the yyxy era. The ghastly beat of “New” suggested a shedding of youth into a more adult phase of seeking danger as thrill. The future-bass drop of “Egoist” ripped off the binding chains to finally achieve self-acceptance and self-sufficiency. And when the group came together as one, the drumming rush at the center of “Hi High” unleashed their emotions with its very intensity in tact not unlike fromis_9’s “Love Bomb.” “Butterfly” opts to do the same with its huge squeaking drop that rids their inhibitions as a direct expression of the transformation phase in their metamorphosis, cutting through the silence with power but also with grace. However, that spotlessness of the song’s choreography also makes me want more songs like “Heart Attack” and “Hi High” from LOONA that reflect just how hard to sort and suppress their feelings might be.
[6]

Anna Suiter: When “Butterfly” was released two weeks ago, I would’ve given it a [4]. The song just felt flat, and everyone’s voices ran together except for Chuu’s. But eventually that pitched whistle bit in the chorus got into my head and stuck there. It really does make you want to fly a little bit. When you include the very deliberate diversity of the music video and the overall “we are all LOONA” theme of the promo, it floats a little more, even if it’s not enough to truly make it soar.
[7]

Thomas Inskeep: This seems to start off too slowly at first, but once the chorus hits you realize that this is the musical effect of the chrysalis becoming the butterfly. And after a bit, the woozy tempo makes all the sense in the world (especially with that bridge). This is EDM pop using its powers for good rather than evil: “Butterfly” is frankly kinda weird, and for K-pop fairly out there, but it works, and grows on you.
[6]

Rebecca A. Gowns: With the usual disclaimer that I haven’t heard much K-pop, here goes: I like the vocals in the verses, and strongly dislike the vocals in the chorus (too much high/low pitch-shifting for my taste, and the word “butterfly” is too feathery and insubstantial). The verses feel like they’re building up to something, but then the chorus is too obvious, a glitter pen doodle of a butterfly on a middle school binder. Which is fine, I guess, just not really my thing! The instrumentation works in some places (the opening, the bridge), but for most of the song it just sounds like a cacophony. 
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Like “Teenage Dream” with twelve hundred thousand other things going on. Plenty of them are good things, like the pinging high notes or the breakdown like an EDM drop through compound eyes, but together they make this so damn crowded. And I still don’t understand the ARG hype at all.
[6]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Incredible how every Orbit is delusionally praising these OT12 LOONA singles as if they’re not terribly predictable and a major step back from the pre-debut material. Blockberry Creative understands that people are already invested in each member and will gleefully obsess over the convoluted ARG elements, so it’s tempting to feel like LOONA’s music is now an afterthought given the dip in quality and creativity. “Butterfly” has the same talk-rapping we’ve heard ample times before, and the same dance music tropes that K-pop fans love slapping with the not-exactly-accurate term “future bass.” The attempt at capturing the lyrics’ sense of boundless, buoyant ecstasy is obvious with various musical elements — the trailing off of vocal melodies, the ebb and flow of the beat, the reverbed snapping — but it feels frustratingly restricted, like performative gestures at something it couldn’t possibly achieve. The occasional dubstep wobbles provide a gritty contrast to the song’s otherwise pristine sound, but “Butterfly” is ultimately too formal and insipid to soar. You can “stan talent,” sure, but talent doesn’t guarantee good songs.
[4]