Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
GOT7‘s return with “Fly” was welcome after a successful teaser campaign that effectively built a lot of hype with a promise of a more serious concept than they previously had. They certainly delivered on the increased maturity, though whether that was for better or worse is up for debate.
“Fly” is difficult to describe as a song because it doesn’t make you feel much at all, and I suppose that would be the biggest criticism I could levy against it. There’s nothing ridiculous to make fun of* or praise and there’s no catchy hook or abysmally bad gimmick, it’s just there.
*The intro isn’t that bad to me, it just gave it a stereotypical Western feel.
In a lot of ways, it’s quite the modern R&B/hip-hop song, for better or worse. However, “Fly” oscillates between good and bad too frequently to develop any kind of rhythm. The verses that focus more on a sing-songy flow embrace the quality of modern times, and I think the understated “flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” chorus will acquit itself better over the long haul than on one listen. The problem is that usually in between those positives is kind of an attempt at melodic yolosweg trap rapping and a pre-chorus that’s basically just a dude with sinus issues talking.
“Fly” feels like a song I might like better when I hear it latter randomly than I do at the moment, which I suppose is something to hope for. But still, at the moment it just wasn’t impactful enough where the positive sections clearly outweighed the negatives.
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The music video was interesting in that it was essentially a peformance version. It’s like they rented out an airstrip for a day and night, brought two sets of clothes, and did the choreography … and that was it.
The few “story” shots it did have were quite nonsensical, basically just showing the members “flying” randomly.
What was the point? To be aesthetic as fuck, I suppose. And while it came off more lazy than artistic, the music video did the job of looking nice. The outfits were on point, the choreography was great to watch, and everything looked class and pristine.
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In the end, I wanted to like this better than I did, mainly because this type of concept is what I think they would excel at. Unfortunately, while GOT7’s “Fly” took a bunch of steps in the right direction, too often it was rudderless, sterile, and nondescript for me to recommend.
