Is the Pink Factory open for field trips? Asking for a friend.

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Joshua Minsoo Kim: Well, we can thank Black Eyed Pilseung and Jeon Goon for the two best K-pop singles of the year thus far, but could we expect anything less from the people behind some of the best K-pop songs of the past ten years? “%% (Eung Eung)” finds Apink doubling down on their new sound, as established by the success of “I’m So Sick,” and the result is such expertly-crafted synthpop that Apink feel like a new force to be reckoned with. Part of that comes with how little pussyfooting happens here — the girls are lonely, but they don’t linger on that feeling for long. Instead, they put an offer on the table for suitors to approach, but they never let you believe that they’ll settle for anyone beneath their standards. The beat drop in the pre-chorus bolsters their assertive tone, but it’s the lighter chorus that sounds more intimidating. The vocal melody has an underlying sadness, but the teeth-baring grin and poise of “If you’re not confident, goodbye” make clear their no-bullshit attitude. Synths dance around the track as if to elucidate the girls’ hypnotizing charm, but they’re also there to tease your incompetence.
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Thomas Inskeep: Linn drums and “pew! pew!”ing synths ping off each other, while the ladies of Apink do their thing and keep up with the tempo, elevated like my heartbeat when I hear pop music this expertly crafted. If the Spice Girls had appeared a decade earlier, they’d have tried to make a record as sublime as “%%.”
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Iris Xie: My impression of this song is that if an international heist group managed to kidnap Grimes in order to train an AI machine on her composition style and inspirations, but then the heist group suddenly decided they wanted very loudly sung choruses…the result would be this song. The start is promising. Some tricky xylophone-sounding synths that riff off the common trope of a ticking clock White Rabbit-style are combined with cooing whisper vocals, and it starts off like a promising season 2 opener (Steven Universe and Hilda mashup, maybe?). But then it immediately drops off into several melody lines that don’t meld with the intriguing synth backdrops, and it ends up sounding more like an auditory stutter that is trying to match the frantic kick drums in the background. Combined with the refrain being cute and cheerleader-y with some sorrowful-sounding verses… it’s a bit confusing. It’s not a boring song, but this sounds more like a mash-up than anything that brings out the qualities of the vocal track or the instrumentals, or even fully takes advantage of the potentially intriguing dissonances that could occur. Due to this, I can’t wait to see what APINK will cook up next, honestly. Sometimes confusing songs are worth playing on repeat.
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Juana Giaimo: Apink keeps the energy high throughout the whole song. Their delicate voices are the stars, but they are enhanced by details that make “%%” sound unique like the keyboards which echo the vocal melody in the prechorus, and the instruments going silent for just an instant, followed by a drum that comes just before the “Eung eung” so that this part has an explosive effect.
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Anjy Ou: My grandma tells me to smile sweetly whenever declining to give my number to an admirer — ostensibly to be polite but more likely because it throws them off. This song kind of feels like the k-pop version of that. It makes you tilt your head to the side a bit: buttery synths run over stuttering, insistent drums, snaps and handclaps; blink and you’re in a different place musically and wondering how you got there. Bomi’s “real recognize real, truly” and Namjoo’s “thank you, but sorry” are dismissals delivered sweetly but somehow more devastating for it. “I won’t settle for less than amazing so nod your head if you think you’re worthy of me” is not a message that goes down well with the general public when coming from women, but it’s packaged enticingly so that it won’t make too many waves — and it gets an emphatic “%%” from me.
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Jessica Doyle: The backing, smooth and lush, and the vocals, high enough to risk sounding shrill, absolutely do not go together. (Further complicating things: Namjoo doesn’t sound shrill, and the result is that for the second straight single I can barely hear her.) Fortunately this is all in service of a song about standoffish ambivalence, so the flip from smooth synthpop to abrasive vocals makes sense. From Apink in particular it makes even more sense: this being the group who has been known for years for the contrast between the cutesy concepts and the barely-concealed (normal-natural-human-adult-woman) tensions for various members and the group as a whole. From a brand-new group I might find those distorted eung eung grunts off-putting, but from this one it feels challenging.
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Alfred Soto: The tectonics of “%%” fascinate me: synths that flicker, vanish, loom large, servicing a song whose lyrics on first glance address erotic hesitation. The faint drums ‘n’ bass lilt of the percussion serves that ambivalence. Giving it a pulse is Apink, who don’t confuse the projection of ambivalence with non-alignment.
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Ramzi Awn: “%% (Eung Eung)” features the kind of songwriting that is hyperfocused on the melodic arch to a fault. Melody has always been one of the most important elements of a pop song, but when it leaves little room for drama as a result, the output suffers no matter how tight the tune is. A “less is more” approach to stringing notes together would relieve Apink of the pressure of finding new vocal twists and turns in ever bar and allow for more surprises for the listener. A little open space wouldn’t hurt either. 
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