The Singles Jukebox

K-pop titans hit the road Jack, but some of us hope they come back for more, for more, for more, for more…

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Alex Clifton: Bittersweet emotion mixed with an airhorn — a fitting hiatus song for a band that manages to produce both four-to-the-floor bangers and fragile emotional moments. I’ll miss these guys a lot in the interim, but I look forward to them staying in my future.
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Adaora Ede: It’s weird that this is the K-pop powerhouse’s goodbye song, because this song doesn’t drip of bravado, nor does it have a particularly sentimental vibe. What I’m hearing in the background is the foundation for a great electro pop song (much like Big Bang’s 2013-2015 work) and what I’m hearing in the foreground is blithe acoustic guitar. The stabbing electronic synths go nowhere, with not even ONE maximalist EDM drop in the hook. I do like it, but in the unfulfilled happy medium way that I like Vox thinkpieces.
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Katherine St Asaph: I was already tired of this lite-FM acoustic whatever a couple years ago, when it made up half of radio airplay by weight. Nothing has changed.
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Thomas Inskeep: If I wanted an acoustic-y, strummy midtempo pop song sung by a man, I’d play a Shawn Mendes record. And I have never played a Shawn Mendes record. 
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Alfred Soto: The South Korean combo has the percussive-acoustic snap of early Destiny’s Child, plaintive too, absent the aggression. 
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Micha Cavaseno: The influences of Amine and Rae Sremmurd’s wonkier material on “Flower Road” is surprising at first but makes sense considering Big Bang probably aren’t capable of emulating other rappers in just how brazenly commercial they’ve had to be (as much as the G-D rendition of Soundcloud rap would be mind blowing to me), and as such we get this strummer. For all the saccharine lovesickness it tries to go for, it’s emotionally flat and, at the risk of being presumptive, TOP is not anywhere near as comfortable as he was on the mic pre-“incident.” Big Bang’s formulas have served a purpose and needed no update up until now, but most certainly if they have any real designs to keep going a new phase has to be put into consideration.
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