Nothing in this song sounds remotely like this photo, alas…

[Video][Website]
[5.78]

Patrick St. Michel: T-ara tend to do things big. Lately, their music videos have resembled short films, running close to or over the 20-minute mark, the one for “Day by Day” being about some sort of dystopian future. Here in Japan, they signed the highest-paying contract any K-pop group has gotten in advance of their Japanese debut. And now they are embroiled in a confusing scandal that threatens to sink the entire group (here is a decent introduction to what is going on, which boils down to inter-group bullying and what sounds like really inept public relations). One hopes they don’t vanish, because T-ara’s music is among the most straightforward but catchy stuff coming out of Korea today. The backing music for “Day by Day” gives off serious Medieval Times vibes, but nothing about the song comes off as novelty. The beat skips along delicately, and the vocals follow suit. The rapping segments — which in any part of the world can stick out awkwardly when forced into pop — glide along naturally with the music. Figuring out the T-ara controversy can be confusing, but their music is anything but.    
[8]

Will Adams: At the risk of angering the T-ara stans who are currently tapping out missives on any website that has a comment box, I will refrain from saying that “Day by Day” is a tepid ballad with cheap production, an overbearing flute loop, and nothing suggesting it deserves a sixteen-minute video. As long as I don’t say that, I should be safe.
[4]

Jonathan Bogart: You’ve got to work really hard to get me to forgive a foregrounded flute in your pop song. T-ara don’t.
[4]

Iain Mew: T-ara sing much of the song like they don’t want to disturb the flute’s lament, which overestimates its power. It’s only come the chorus that they spring into life and turn things around to make the song sound like it actually matters. The pause and drop into Hwayoung’s later verse, though, is sublime. She suddenly sounds twice as badass, like the moment in a story where a previously minor character suddenly re-appears and is revealed as a major force.
[6]

Frank Kogan: A wisp of a song, but with disparate voices playing off each other perfectly, beats rolling from Hwayoung’s tongue with a little extra pressure, Jiyeon smoothing everything back down with her typically uninflected singing, Eunjung briefly squeezing passion into the refrain, Soyeon — usually a powerhouse — answering with gentleness, and Jiyeon taking Eunjung’s part at the end and laying it to sleep with small breaths. Of course, as we now know, things didn’t meld so well backstage: an unclear story, maybe of young women pushing themselves or being pushed until someone buckled; and the fine citizens of the Internet, getting an inkling of this, chose to believe in a catfight and in people getting hurt, the public’s own discontent and pain projected outward like smoke. Meanwhile, T-ara themselves stumbled in conflict and confusion, and dust and sadness finally settled atop this otherwise unassuming piece of music.
[9]

Michaela Drapes: My ability to connect with this sort of K-pop seems to be wearing as thin as the endlessly recycled tropes used in this track. Dilute and unchallenging, this is the opposite of what I’d like a pop song to be.
[1]

Katherine St Asaph: “Cry Cry” was a Max Martin rip, and this is likewise a rip of something, though of what I’m not sure. It’s like “Criminal” if Britney’s guy stole her a better flute sample — but only one. It’s like the acoustic emo thwap clogging the States’ charts, with the B.o.B pop-rap werses swapped out for their K-pop-rap counterparts. It’s got the bridge from a mountainside diva ballad, the whispered adlibs from R&B songs innumerable and the backing vocalists who doot-did wonders for Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole. It’s omnivorous, in other words, but of not pop’s flashiest moments but its wispiest. That’ll do nothing for everyone lulzing at “Gangnam Style,” but it does enough for me.
[7]

Brad Shoup: Can I make amends here for underrating “Criminal”? In terms of vocal approches, T-ara draws on an embarrassment of riches. What was uninteresting with “Cry Cry” is quite moving here, with Eunjung’s work on the chorus pushing this toward classic-AM weeper territory. The acoustic guitar sounds rich, the flute ancient. Here’s hoping I’m underrating this as well.
[7]

Anthony Easton: I know we are supposed to review the single, which is four minutes and nice enough. But the 11-minute video, where T-ara saves the world from the anger of God’s arrogance, is much more interesting, especially with the idea of T-ara working systematically through the sea-can jungles of post-apocalyptic Seoul. I would watch that movie much quicker than listening to the generic pop song that it soundtracks; in fact, I like this idea of a pop career as foreplay to a barrage across mediums. Plus, swords.
[6]