The Singles Jukebox

Cruel summer…

[Video][Website]
[7.25]

Katherine St Asaph: Dunno, why so forced?
[6]

Thomas Inskeep: More gleaming pop from the Wonder Girls, only this time they’ve gone for light skanking instead of the ’80s gloss of last year’s Reboot. Their lyrics are as sharp as ever (really, gentlemen, you should do right by them), and so is their sound. I just prefer the ’80s.
[7]

Mo Kim: Sticky, sweet, and summer-ready; listening to this makes me want to lick a popsicle plaintively whilst leaning against the moonlit wall of a 7-Eleven.
[8]

Cassy Gress: So many artists put out songs in the summer and call it a “smash summer jam” or similar. This is the first one I’ve heard this year that actually put summer in my mind; it’s probably just the reggae inflection, but “why-y-y I’m so lone-lyyy” has just the right lean on it to evoke heat mirages on the highway.
[8]

Katie Gill: The inescapable summer beach stylings have made their way to K-Pop. Thankfully here, the steel drums and UB40 keyboard don’t sound as cliché as they have in other endeavors. Wonder Girls’ tight harmonies, a fun rap break, and the purposeful lethargy of the track make a wonderful final product that I’ve just been listening to over and over again.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: It’s a truism that reggae-pop always sounds best in summer, and since I dislike summer, I like reggae-pop best when it’s depressive rather than sunny. Wonder Girls make immaculate pop about subtle shades of emotion, so of course their depressive reggae is going to hit my spot hard.
[8]

Adaora Ede: An insistence on breaking out of the “idol” mold to become an artist is more aligned with the graduated mass idol culture of Japanese pop, yet Wonder Girls’ recent forays into self-composition and production show them breaking out of the less niche-oriented K-pop. In Korean pop music, the musical variety is so great that writing your own songs or even straying out of genre to styles like rock or hip-hop will not instantly separate you from the idol label. WG’s Park Yeeun has vocalized her aspirations for Wonder Girls to be considered artists, not products for mass consumption. However, their first band attempt, “I Feel You,” lacked the authenticity to level Wonder Girls past idol status: the music didn’t require a staged band set for their improved euphony to shine through. “Why So Lonely” does break barriers by standing away from the mediocre power-pop/Maroon 5-esque pop-rock sound that signifies band concepts in K-pop, with every member putting their instruments to good use. Yes, It’s slightly difficult to take to cruise ship vacation reggae-rap at first, but the artistry being conveyed without the help of the JYP machine makes it innovative.
[8]

Will Rivitz: Everything here is really unsettling. The music is a weirdly processed piece of pop-reggae, MAGIC!’s “Rude” with a layer of dust on top. The video takes this strangeness up three or four notches: Wonder Girls don’t quite play their instruments in sync with the music, and look uncomfortable while doing so to boot; nihilistic binge-drinking is casually mixed in with the rest of the video’s relatively innocuous destruction of a man(nequin); and everything’s colored this strange pastel palette which jives poorly with the music and visual content. Has anybody coined the term “unKanny valley” yet?
[5]