Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
DIA are back with “Mr. Potter“, whose main goal has to be somehow aiming to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits.
“Mr. Potter” actually starts out pretty alright, with a lively instrumental of synths, snares, and what I think is a xylophone that lays a decent foundation. Unfortunately, there was everything that came after that.
At some point I expected the song to switch up from how it started, but from the verses through the chorus, it basically stays at the same static level. As such, the chorus comes across extremely flat, and if it didn’t repeat over and over again, a casual listen wouldn’t help you figure out what the hook actually was. That’s a problem for a pop song that doesn’t have other elements working in its favor.
The rap sections, for example, feel generally unnecessary for the mood of the song, and to make matters worse there’s a section that slows the track down even further for the purposes of vocal wank that doesn’t actually do anything to make the song better.
In a lot of ways, this was like TWICE‘s “Cheer Up“, except without pace, viral catchphrases, and a worse hook. That track eventually grew on me a bit even though I thought it was average initially, but at least that had energy to give it a chance in the long run. “Mr. Potter” was an overall drab affair to me, which was disappointing because of the hope the teasers provided.
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The music video fused elements of Harry Potter with Peter Rabbit, for some kind of weird concept that I honestly don’t understand right now and ended up reminding me more of ‘Donnie Darko‘ than whatever they were angling for. Like a lot of things they did, it just seems like they’re throwing popular shit against the wall and hoping some part of it sticks to DIA and they can take the next step forward.
Case in point was asking the choreographer to self-plagiarize Girl’s Day‘s popular suspenders dance from “Expectation“.
Maybe it works, I dunno, I’m not a marketing expert. But to me, I can’t think of a group that pandered so blatantly and made it. Yes, everybody takes concepts or genres or whatever from previous artists, but borrowing from so many and mashing it all together generally makes it seem like a mess and turns people off it.
Oh, E.T. too, huh? Alrighty.
You know what could’ve saved this whole thing? Hyerin doing a Voldemort impersonation throughout the music video.
That’s about it.
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There are problems with the group when my biggest takeaway from DIA’s “Mr. Potter” is wondering what the hell MBK Entertainment is doing. It’s much like CLC and Cube Entertainment, where I have no dislike for the girls or the group itself, but it seems like the management is less concerned about developing their own sound or look or brand and more concerned with hopping on the bandwagon of whatever was popular and hoping DIA can ride the wave so they don’t actually have to give a fuck themselves.
It’s sort of a waste, but that wouldn’t be anything new to MBK.
