Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Taemin‘s attention-grabbing teasers were an effective hype vehicle for his upcoming ‘Press It‘ album, but now he’s released a music video for the song “Drip Drop” in order to build even more momentum.
“Drip Drop” constantly sounded like the instrumental and vocals were being cut short, as they were both sudden and muddled throughout most of the song. While it led to an eventual explosion at the back-end of the track that was a nice payoff, my initial reaction to it wasn’t positive.
I had thought my impressions of the music were a result of being distracted by the impressive visual showing, so I gave it another listen without watching the performance. While I expected to gain new perspective on what the song was trying to accomplish, my impression actually got worse as it sounded even more like a radio that was cutting in and out of tune for at least the initial two-thirds of the song.
“Drip Drop” as a vehicle for the performance in the video served its purpose, and I’m sure it’ll make for a grand spectacle at concerts, but as a standalone song I wouldn’t have bothered to stick around for the whole thing if it wasn’t Taemin.
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In contrast to the song, everything in the video worked for me. The visuals were impressive, the choreography was on beat and visually engaging, and the charismatic performance by Taemin was difficult to take your eyes off.
I’m not sure exactly when SM Entertainment decided they’d had enough of the dance-in-the-box bullshit, but when one sees the outdoor shots that have peppered the music videos of their artists recently, I’m just grateful to whoever convinced the company to change their ways.
For both better and worse, “Drip Drop” was certainly a performance showcase. And for as much as I didn’t appreciate the track musically, it definitely served as an explainer for why Taemin’s one of the better performers in K-pop, and that has to be scored as win in the end.
