Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
NewJeans‘ comeback got off to an ideal start yesterday with their self-titled intro for Get Up being a The Powerpuff Girls collab that proved to be a perfect fit for the group and K-pop, really. Today though they released their first of three title tracks in “Super Shy“, which also ties in The Powerpuff Girls, as I’m pretty sure it utilizes the drums (or something similar to it) from the animation’s theme song — which were done by Clyde Stubblefield and sampled from James Brown‘s “Funky Drummer“.
Again the collab pairs hilariously well with NewJeans, as the breakbeat sample is a perfect fit for their sound, providing a quick tempo that underlines “Super Shy”, and it was a big reason I was looking forward to this excitedly based on the teaser. However, I liked the song a lot more when I thought the opening chorus was actually a verse and it would eventually develop into something more as the song went along. Instead, that opening ended up being chorus that was repeated constantly, and the verses were more of a smoothed quasi-rap.
While its barely 2:30 of song, the pre-chorus/chorus is smushed into it five times, which makes it inherently repetitive as there’s minimal variation or evolution in the sound as well. This wouldn’t be a problem if the hook was as catchy as “Hype Boy” or “OMG” or even the more direct comparison of “Ditto“, but even the latter was delivered with more verve and melody than “I’m super shy, super shy, but wait a minute, while I make you mine, make you mine” that’s about a third of the song.
That said, “Super Shy” is ultimately fine and NewJeans is remarkable in the sense that even my least favorite offerings from them are vibey with a light and breezy quality to them that make it easy listens. However, that formula makes them inherently reliant on the foundational beat (good, in this case) and the appeal of the hook (not so good), and this one doesn’t connect on the same level as their previous works.
