The Singles Jukebox

No, too easy…

[Video]
[4.88]

Anna Katrina Lockwood: Well done to Somi — she has clearly figured out that the way you get regular releases on a YG-adjacent label is to write your own damn songs. Unfortunately, “DUMB DUMB” sounds like a song abandoned at a mere 3/4ths of the way to completion. I was startled by its abrupt termination with a mere 2:30 on the clock and nary a bridge in sight. Lord knows I love a K-pop song of petite duration, but this just doesn’t have enough go in it to satisfy my pop desires. I’m also mystified by the decision to name this song the same as the beloved Red Velvet title track.
[4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: The song itself is well-written– a clever set of lyrics (title line aside) with a driving melody compelling performed by Somi. It’s let down by baffling production choices, most of them less musical flourishes and more sound effects, which turn a decent song into a moderately annoying novelty track.
[4]

Juana Giaimo: The structure of “Dumb Dumb” is interesting, but the delivery makes it seem too normal. The song goes from cute, to extra-trendy, to trap, to a full synthpop ending. For the cute part you have those classic piano chords and a snap as a beat, and for the chorus a deep bass enters and SOMI’s vocals are spoken and cold — all of which is really predictable.
[6]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: It’s amazing that something so relatively sparse feels overproduced. And yet the elegantly simple chorus makes everything else into artifice, dead weight the song must free itself of.
[5]

Katherine St Asaph: Could use more dumb, actually; maybe that’d make this sound more dynamic and less like it’s caught in a playlist vise grip between “Lean On” and “Worth It.”
[4]

Crystal Leww: “DUMB DUMB” is by-the-book end-of-career Teddy and hits all the same cues that what feels like the last eighty of his singles have — quiet start, whistles, chugging chorus, rap part, and booming finale. This feels frustratingly simple, and while it probably does everything just well enough for Somi to keep it going, the starpower is lacking.
[5]

Ian Mathers: The problem with the whistled hook and the throbbing production melding together so well is that it makes the rest of the song, the singing parts, feel kind of superfluous. But they’re by no means bad, and that’s not the worst problem to have.
[6]

Alfred Soto: I can’t fight the hook, will slam that whistle to the ground.
[5]