Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
KARD, who have still yet to debut but have two quality efforts under their belts already, are back with their third (and final?) pre-release in “Rumor“.
While the same sonic underpinnings remain for “Rumor” from their previous efforts, this was less EDM and more reggae and dancehall in terms of influence. The male/female interplay during the chorus is a prime example, and that sound resonates to me well, so I loved how it was utilized there. The instrumental part of the chorus is setup superbly by Somin‘s “mallo mallo mallo”, and this time it’s a vibe that’s a lot more chill, like something you would see people skanking to at an outdoor concert with a blunt hanging out of their mouth. Good times and a lot of fun.
Anyway, the verses are where the dancehall and reggaeton are most clear, and BM and J.Seph always at least fast talk in rhythm enough to at least make it aurally pleasing. J.Seph is the better rapper, but BM seems to invoke the reggae sound best, and I think he nailed the song on this track.
The auto-tune use at the start seemed a bit unnecessary but given the sound of the track, it wasn’t that out of place at least. Plus, it seemed like there was a lack of Jiwoo in this, which seemed to underutilize her a bit. On the other hand, while some of the other songs were primarily focused on the vocals of the women, this switched it up a bit to make the men take more of a lead and it was a nice change to have a deeper sound dominate the track.
I would say my primary concern with this, as I mentioned before, was that the slower pace could turn some off. But that’s everybody else’s problem, because I loved the slight reversal and it still maintained something foot-tapping with the underlying beat. “Rumor” is an easy listen that hits the sweet spot of being chill but not being boring, and its replayability is great.
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Remember KARD being LG ambassadors? Um, yeah.
Subtle branding. Get money.
I had hoped that the portrait filming from the music video was just temporary, but no, that shit carried on for the whole video (probably cause of LG). The only time it worked was for “Born Hater” because of the concept, and while it might be artsy or whatever, so many times throughout this music video I just wanted a whole shot.
Seriously, all I wanted was clear shots of their insane visuals in this comeback, but the chances were minimal.
I’m just saying.
https://twitter.com/asianjunkiecom/status/856364537938714624
While the dance was probably the best executed they’ve done so far, the choreography itself was a bit uninspired, at least during the point dance section which seemed to repeat at times.
As a whole though, if they filmed this like a normal music video, I think the setting would end up as their best yet. Unfortunately they went portrait for god knows what reason.
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After the release of “Rumor”, KARD is now three-for-three for me, and they’re still in their pre-release stage. The sound resonated, managed to invoke a bit of nostalgia, and is one of those tracks effortlessly easy to groove to. People are assuredly going to go through their G-Friend kind of whine about this (even though it’s not really trop house at all), but DSP Media made the right choice by making slight changes but still sticking to the script of what made them popular to begin with.
https://twitter.com/asianjunkiecom/status/856376076905267200
“Rumor” supposedly ends a trilogy for them, and I’m not sure where they go from here, but their careers are off to a great start musically, and one can only hope they eventually manage to get the domestic fandom on board with the hype.
