Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
M.O.N.T debuted on January 4 with a song called “Will You Be My Girlfriend?” To say that things didn’t exactly go as planned would probably be an understatement.
Literally can’t find any other information on their sales, which probably isn’t a great sign.
Anyway, that leads us to their recent release, which is extremely subtly titled “Love Live The Republic Of Korea“, released two days before the anniversary of Liberation Day for Korea from Japan in commemoration of that.
As you may know, the two countries are currently locked in a contentious trade war, so this is the perfect time to try to ride a wave of nationalistic fervor. Notably, they filmed this on Dokdo Island (disputed territory between Korea and Japan), and they aren’t exactly trying to hide the fact that they are hoping everything combines to make this a new kind of anti-Japan anthem for everybody to use. It’s hard to predict how people will react to something like this, but I think their logic is basically that … well, it can’t get worse.
As far as the song goes, by rule I’m generally allergic to shit like this. Call it patriotism, call it nationalism, call it whatever, I much prefer political music that subverts rather than does propaganda and I’m betting that’s not a rare sentiment. I get the message, I do, but this is obviously a commercial venture so it just comes off as cringe and shameless. Though hell, it’s worth a shot for them.
In terms of sound, I do think the aggressive tone fits them a lot better than the generic cute boy group thing they debuted with, so hopefully they continue down this road for their comeback.
Should be interesting to monitor the reaction to this going forward, and surely a reaction is what they’re aiming for here, so there needs to be one for this to work.
