Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
B.A.P recently returned, in more ways than one, with “Skydive“. Along with it, they dragged along an epic 10-minute long music video to go with a song that had the sound to fit the theme.
After scuffling for a bit, B.A.P have now returned back to a sound that is definitely more along the lines of their earlier work, and that’s a positive turn of events. Just in general terms, the explosive and aggressive nature of the track plays well to their strengths and is a welcome change of pace in K-pop as the year winds down to dreary season.
The rapping was solid for the most part, but the instrumental during the verses had me a bit concerned that the song would settle into a rut by the time the chorus hit. Thankfully, at least the verses did a good job of keeping the tension and the darker undertones to the track. That was important because the chorus did anything but just hold serve, instead choosing to explode with interesting rock-esque elements and bass, mixing distorted screams of “skydive” with aggressive baritone rapping to create an instantly appealing hook. The chorus itself was bookended by a vocal pre-chorus and post-chorus that both setup the explosive hook and effectively geared down from it, respectively.
All that said, the combination of the instrumental and the way the track was arranged means it runs the risk of being just a gigantic mess of sounds. At times, I would’ve preferred if they went with a less busy plan as I think it would’ve enhanced rather than detracted. But despite that complaint, “Skydive” was definitely a step in the right direction and an overall positive.
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The music video is basically a short film, and the easy comparison is “One Shot” on steroids.
B.A.P play a hit squad of sorts who are flying high, at least until Daehyun gets notified that his girlfriend is being held hostage. The twist is that the kidnapper is one of the group members, which obviously causes him to see shady shit everywhere.
That culminates with him finding the dead body of his girlfriend dumped in with the trash. Meanwhile, the other members of the group still go out on assignment, but are ambushed by authorities. It looks like they’ll just be arrested, but then Daehyun shows up salty as fuck and everything goes to shit. It results in everybody dying … except Jongup, who is revealed as the traitor.
While the ending explanation montage was nice, and the symbolism of the scene with Jongup beating the rest at poker was a nice touch, I definitely think that would’ve been better used as foreshadowing. Then again, subtlety is rarely a thing in K-pop, and it certainly wasn’t used much here either.
“Skydive” was an ambitious effort on the part of B.A.P and for the most part they managed to pull it off, giving us epicness on both the scale of the music video and the atmosphere of the song. While it still does have its flaws, it’s more important that hopefully this marks a permanent stylistic turn back of the clock for the group.
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‘Noir’ Album
“Skydive” Song
