Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Girl’s Day have returned with a music video, song, and glorious teaser pictures, with the latter unfortunately ending up being the best part of the comeback, as “Ring My Bell” is their poorest effort since like 2012.
There are two positives about this comeback that could make it work with the public despite my apprehension about the song: 1) their visuals are amazing even if their outfits were not 2) that leg shake/smack my ass dance is simple and fun and could be of great use on variety and what not.
Apart from that, I struggled to find reasons to like it all that much. The verses were overwhelmed by the production just like in AOA‘s comeback, and while the pre-chorus was solid, I didn’t find the chorus or post-chorus particularly catchy and they both lacked a decent melody. Also, with all the mentions of bells in the song, and with the instrumental being so damn busy and noisy, did they really not put bells into this? Come on. The production wasn’t quite AOA comeback messy, but it was noticeably distracting and taking away from everything else.
The music video was quite the shocker in that it is usually one of Girl’s Day’s strengths, but this didn’t enhance the song much at all. I get the retro feel they were going for … but not really. The whole thing was really all over the place, with the sets, the concept, and the styling coming off oddly random. It all seemed to lack cohesiveness from the start with the teasers, but I figured it would come together in the end. Unfortunately, the final product was just as messy as I hoped it wouldn’t be. The impressive part is that their stylists really had to work to make Girl’s Day almost not look amazing. The beach-esque shot in the denim and white was a great look, but everything else seemed thrown together rather than thought out.
I haven’t disliked a promoted single Girl’s Day have released in like three years, so it’s safe to say I’m a big fan, but “Ring My Bell” was easily their weakest effort in quite a while. It simply tried to do too many things — a trend in this summer’s clusterfuck of a competition — and that came off in especially stark contrast to their usual sharp concepts like “Something“, “Expectation“, and even “Darling“. Here’s hoping for a quality repackage release or something.
