Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
KiiiKiiii, the new Starship Entertainment girl group with way way wayyy too many vowels in their name, has released their follow-up track, “DEBUT SONG“. While their first single “I DO ME” was relatively harmless and fine, it also didn’t do a whole lot and left me hoping this song would be something a lot different. Well … I mean, I guess technically I got what I asked for, as they delivered something truly unexpected with both the music video and song.
While people are already doing apologetics for it — arguing this is the kind of off-the-wall track others were asking for out of K-pop — I actually think the problem with “DEBUT SONG” is that it’s not sonically all that weird. Rather, it’s sort of just similar to the type of effects-laden Korean hip-hop tracks I usually try to pretend don’t exist. Even in interpolating the “Happy Birthday” tune — with a lyrics adjustment to be relevant to KiiiKiii’s debut — it only does the kind of thing that’s already been done multiple times in the past year in K-pop with other children’s songs to similarly muted impact. What I’m saying is if they were willing to go off-script from typical K-pop sounds, they really should’ve tried something frantic and chaotic instead, as this mostly just imitates annoying tropes.
Well, credit where it’s due for KiiiKiiii going down a different route at least, and perhaps trolling (?) a bit. They seem to be having fun and showcasing some personality with the music video, so hopefully that’s a positive sign. I guess at the very least they’ve made the direction of the last single of their debut truly a mystery.
