BLACKPINK “DEADLINE”: Not satisfied with Korean sauce (REVIEW)

I admit that I’m far from a person who follows the K-pop scene closely – at most, something happens, something pops up. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t feel the lack of a female quartet for several years Blackpink. Or maybe the main reason was the fact that, despite the extension of the group contract with YG Entertainment, the situation with individual contracts was slightly different – and it was solo careers that were the main area of ​​the band’s activity in recent years and made the singers still loud. After all, even if people who have no idea what k-pop is, let alone Blackpink, recognize the single “APT.” Rosé with guest appearance by Bruno Mars, the break from group work turned out to be profitable.

The girls have finally returned with a new mini-album, with a single preceding it “Jump” He already managed to make quite a mess in the middle of last year everywhere he could. Thus, the girl group jumped back to the top, which is hardly surprising when they recruited Diplo himself to produce the single. And something quite surprising came out of it – sure, EDM and trap had been present in their music before, but would you expect that in a Blackpink song you would hear a rumble bass typical of late-night techno, or… hardstyle? I don’t think anyone was ready for this. It’s a pity that due to the need to stimulate at all costs, there are always only minor tidbits in the whole.

However, if in “HIM” you can feel the retrowave, it’s also not a coincidence – Cirkut, who was responsible for the lion’s share of what The Weeknd presented on the “Starboy” album, was engaged in the production, and Chris Martin played guitar and keyboards. And I think that his moment in the song is so coldplay that you don’t even really have to guess where. And here we also have post-dubstep wobble, drill basses, trap drums. There’s a lot going on and it’s already starting to get stuffy.

But just when I was afraid that I would be dealing with musical ADHD, the next three songs release the pressure significantly. IN “Me and we” and v “Champion” production is taken over by Dr. Luke, first proposing it as a thoroughly pop-trap track, and then turning it into a potential stadium hit that is halfway to Imagine Dragons. However, I can’t help but feel that compared to the other moments on the album, these songs are surprisingly anachronistic, a few years too late. AND “Fxxxboy” based on a guitar motif (I can’t help but feel that it’s a Fender Stratocaster that plays so nicely, but I could be wrong) it may be atmospheric, but it seems so vastly underproduced that it leaves me with a feeling of cognitive dissonance.

Therefore, although initially I was afraid that the fact that “DEADLINE” it lasts only a quarter of an hour, it is fully justified by how much happens in the first two songs – it was simply impossible to endure such a dose of stimuli any longer – the next three songs make me finish the whole thing with a feeling of great dissatisfaction. Even if the refined sound has reached such a level that hits from a few years ago such as “Shut Down” or “How You Like That” seem to be the work of a total amateur compared to the content of “DEADLINE”. Here, the cost of production and attention to detail can be felt at every step, but the overall idea was a bit lacking.

BLACKPINK, “DEADLINE”, Mystic Production