EXO have released “Love Me Right“, which only reinforces why the concept image teaser was so mock worthy, but also shows that almost any of EXO’s other songs would’ve been a better choice as a lead single than “Call Me Baby“.
If you’re able to get past the inherent ridiculousness that EXO are wearing baseball hats while donning soccer cleats in Arena League Football uniforms in a soccer stadium, then “Love Me Right” is actually a thoroughly solid, catchy dance track that ironically enough would’ve probably worked better with a generic club-type concept. You’ll rarely hear me admit that, but this concept makes so little sense that if the concept just didn’t distract from the song, I think it all would’ve worked better.
As for the song, it sounds like something SHINee would’ve done, which I obviously mean as a positive. It’s not quite as creative as SHINee’s recent efforts, but even though I’m tired as fuck right now, I found it impossible to avoid moving to this. And from a dance track, what else can you ask for, really? You want your listeners to feel something, to move to it, and it definitely accomplished that with its consistently upbeat nature, basic but catchy hook, and enough twists and turns to keep it from getting repetitive (the clapping section where the instrumental became more muted was especially appreciated).
—–
I went into “Love Me Right” expecting to write it off in Deep Reviews or something just to give you guys somewhere you can circlejerk over this, and I wasn’t really in the mood to give this a fair chance. However, after two or three listens it even convinced me in my curmudgeonly state to bang this article out, which admittedly can only be seen as a rousing success for a dance track that’s meant to up energy and have the exact effect it just had on me.
So despite its joke of a concept, its general lack of sense in terms of music video “plot”, and the editor trying to compete with T-ara‘s for most jump-cuts ever made, “Love Me Right” absolutely achieved what it set out to do.