Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Primary continues to do Primary-esque things musically, and he has another jam on his hands in “Mannequin“, which features vocalist Suran and rapper Beenzino.
Not only do I love the instrumental, and not only is this memorable as hell, but Suran’s voice stands out among the crowd in a world full of sanitized vocals. Besides her great vocal performance, even Beenzino showed up for this. While he does often get by more on his image than actual mic skills, he managed to put away the sweg/haters topics and actually put forth a performance for Primary that helped elevate this track. As a bonus, he was also a great comic foil in the music video.
My only problem, lyrically, was that it was a bit on the nose. The concept was plenty obvious that the message was about plastic surgery/vanity, materialism and its connection to happiness/self-worth, and why the cycle is endless, so I didn’t think it was necessary for the track to lack so much nuance, especially as it was presented after the 3:05 mark or so. If this were a mainstream K-pop track I’d say the straight-forwardness may even be a bit ballsy, but for a Primary track, I think they have the ability to do subversive themes and not be so obvious with it. They’re better than having to rely on a ton of exposition to communicate the message to listeners.
That said, it’s a relatively minor issue since the message IS a layered and worthy one, and apart from that, the song was excellent. I already love “Mannequin” now, and I spent yesterday looping it, so this is a track I can see growing on me even more with time.
