Yes... I skipped a day... I have failed already! I was going to finish this last night, but by then it was 2:30 in the morning, since I had spent so much time watching my first three episodes of House M.D. with my sister. I hated it. I hate that mean-spirited, evil show. But that's not the subject of this blog post.
I would say I'm avoiding the subject of House M.D. to preserve my own peace, as I have been prone to anger this week, and it hurts my head. But the subject on which I am about to comment, though not invoking in me the rage that House M.D. did in the midnight hours of the 16th and 17th, is certainly not a cheerful one, and it does not excite my heart so much as leave my head stuffy and aching.
So last night I got this video on my recommended page, which is strange because I don't listen to Enhypen.
I had seen a clip of this song before, used by a girl group stan to disparage the new trend for rage hip-hop in K-pop, attributed to CORTIS with their songs "GO" and "FaSHioN". I have to confess I'm not a fan of CORTIS either, not the least because I don't stream any group under HYBE for their explicit ties to Israel. (This is painful at times because one of my favorite groups, Seventeen, is under HYBE.)
And I do not like the rage hip-hop trend in K-pop - even though I think rage hip-hop is super fucking cool. It's just that the structure of the typical K-pop song, with chorus and verse kept strictly apart, does not seem to suit the dizzying intensity of the genre. One of the reasons "Fame" by RIIZE fell flat on its face was its insistence on also being a pop song, with subdued verses and a typical prechorus build-up. The chorus was passionate enough, if forgettable, but overall the group's talents did not suit the genre at all.
"Knife" is a pretty inoffensive song when you listen to the whole thing. For the first 20 seconds, though, it is laughable. The song begins with a silly little sample of this vine.
Could this sample have been effective in combining a playful tone with something more intense? In another life, maybe. Here it feels like an AI-generated parody of a K-pop song. ChatGPT, generate me an Enhypen song based off of this vine. If this song were entirely AI-generated I would not be surprised.The verses are... fine. We have the nice little melody fragment that has to be repeated four times across two boys' voices; we have the brief prechorus melody alternated with awkward "nahs" and "mms", and then the goddamn chorus again, and perhaps we should stop trying to redo "FE!N". Let's give up. The average person listens to a song and appreciates it, while the small group of evil, evil people who compose songs to sell to K-pop companies listen to a song and immediately begin to brainstorm ways to make money off of it.
I am not here to discuss the complicated political history of K-pop cultural appropriation, though. I am not nearly informed enough about that, nor can I claim expertise in rage hip-hop - although I listened to a few songs ("Miss the Rage" and "FE!N" included) for this post. I also returned to "Breathe" by boy group xikers.
Guys, I have to be real with you. I hate xikers. They have the Stray Kids problem of being clamorous without any real musical originality, and some of their voices I find straight-up unpleasant to listen to (although that is extremely subjective, and I'm sure they're nice boys). Plus, being from nine months ago, "Breathe" looks like an even more egregious "FE!N" ripoff than "Knife". But it has a little more life, more personality, more youth to it, making Enhypen sound tired and behind the times in comparison. I am even charmed by the tinny "nollan geoya hokshi?" before the chorus. Like, sure. If you're going to do this, at least make it funny.
I do not want to pretend that "Knife" is not somewhat powerful when listened to independently. If toy-like and absurd, the beat does have some kick to it. And mercifully the song ends after two minutes and twenty seconds. However, this song is a trend-killing, tired, limp failure. I know people who compose for Enhypen will never learn their lesson, but I hope groups that cannot afford to release a bad song will.