SONAMOO’s “Cushion” effectively complex but with a lot of cringe

SONAMOO have finally returned after what seemed like forever with “Cushion“, a song about describing how a guy is like a cushion over and over again. No, really.

This is like SNSD‘s “I Got A Boy” in how it’s disjointed and disorganized on purpose, but unlike that song, “Cushion” manages to make it work since all the individual parts are not a hot mess. The fact that there’s solid rap verses actually helps SONAMOO a ton in executing this, as it justifies the drop in noise along with the disjointedness of the verses compared to the pre-chorus, hook, and post-chorus vocals.

I want to say I flat-out liked this, just because the chorus was catchy, but it eventually struck me more as something that’s tolerable. It’s good enough where you can enjoy when it comes on the radio or on your playlist, but it’s not something I would actively seek out or remember. In retrospect, it’s a lot like their debut in that sense, even though they’re very different songs.

Primarily what takes it down into “solid” territory is that the lyrics and Engrish are so bad. Like I never talk about lyrics in K-pop cause it’s all shit, but the whole hug-him-like-a-cushion concept stands out in its terribleness. Like it’s not even mindlessly stupid terrible like Red Velvet‘s “Ice Cream Cake“, it’s over-explaining terrible. “So soft and cushy, hug him, like a water bed! How cool!” And then end it by repeating “he’s like a cushion, like a cushion” twice more at the end IN CASE YOU DIDN’T GET THE HINT EARLIER. Kill me. They even call it embarrassing themselves in the lyrics.

Again, it’s a quality song, but the actual music is wasted by the terribad concept which has lyrics that were also terribad. Just feels like this was a bit of a wasted opportunity, as the song had the tools to be a jam.