This time, (Three-Quarters of) Blackpink Day includes the one-quarter we haven’t covered to date…
Ian Mathers: This is fun! But she keeps saying “I think I’m gonna!” and then not finishing the sentence, which is frustrating. If only there was some context that could solve this mystery. Oh well!
[7]
Katherine St. Asaph: What if Britney Spears’s “3” wasn’t about threesomes but gooning?
[2]
Mark Sinker: There’s a Chesterton short story (topical) about exactly this: “The Mistake of the Machine.” Plus the entire history of music, composition and delivery, is of course about how you CAN fake it. Really this is like yr entire job. Perfectly designed and shaped, announced the listener-machine.
[7]
Will Adams: The only time this song hints at the rumble its title promises is during the chorus, which is just “Padam Padam” with less of a pulse.
[5]
Nortey Dowuona: Jisoo is an interesting vocalist, capable of holding the listener’s attention due to her years in a four-piece group where each member has to strike a distinctive role while still combining into a stronger whole. But Jack Brady and Jordan Roman, aka the Wavys, are unambitious producers, and they give Jisoo a thin and unimposing background template for her first solo single. Neither their conventionally assembled drums and pretty standard Moog bass, nor the flickers of acoustic guitar, nor Sarah Troy’s background vocals make an impact on the listener. The bridge doesn’t provide any more forward motion, and the drum pattern switch-up on the post-chorus is so flat and unengaging it squanders the brief spurt of energy that had been generated. Even the black, greyed-out Enemy of the State/Ant-Man in the suitcase visuals in the video — if one were to even watch it — don’t give any life to these sonic choices. Jisoo is capable of making a great solo song, but she would need a brighter, more vibrant producer to pull it out of her — more road cracking and tower toppling, less eerie shudders driving you underneath your kitchen table.
[4]
Kayla Beardslee: This is the most YG Entertainment-esque of the non-YG Blackpink solos so far, and it activates my fight-or-flight instinct a bit to hear the dated EDM and questionable antidrop. But there’s more of an interesting texture palette and (checks notes) will to live coming from the producers here, and Jisoo sounds like she’s having fun with a topline that actually gives her something to do. This song was clearly chosen for safe commercial appeal, but I think it’s probably the weakest one on her new album, which is a cute collection of nicely polished A-pop tracks that I’ve found myself returning to a surprising amount. Fuck YG Entertainment: these ladies know what they’re doing on their own!
[7]
Taylor Alatorre: If you isolated the instrumental, it would’ve taken me several tries to guess “earthquake” as the type of natural disaster this is trying to evoke. And it’s not as if there aren’t canonical templates within recent EDM memory to show how that can be done. With 2NE1’s comeback, we’re due for K-pop to start revisiting its festival-trap phase, anyway.
[4]
Claire Davidson: “Earthquake” reminds me most of those bass-driven club tracks that rose to prominence during the pandemic, where the lyrics were often secondary and the instrumentals weren’t nearly as atmospheric or imposing as they strove to be. “Earthquake,” despite an admittedly propulsive pre-chorus, not only feels five years out of date (at the very least), but its commitment to the central imagery of an earthquake feels almost nonexistent; JISOO, who already sounds anesthetized throughout the song, punctuates the chorus with scat singing, of all things. Surely a track this derivative is not how you want to assert your identity as a solo artist.
[4]
Dave Moore: I had JISOO pegged as BLACKPINK’s Ringo, and she’s not beating the allegations on this one, a decidedly un-seismic sub-Gaga syllable rush. Kind of weird to give the person with to date the least (musical) personality the track that requires the most attitude to signify.
[4]
Julian Axelrod: After listening to all the BLACKPINK solo efforts it appears I’m a “JISOO girl,” which according to this TikTok means I’m “weird but in a good way” and I like “vintage aesthetics”? Can someone who knows more about K-pop or my personality confirm or deny?
[8]
Melody Esme: This is an earthquake alright. But not really the natural disaster kind; more the I thought a train went past my window until I heard about it later kind.
[5]
Alfred Soto: 4.0 on the Richter scale.
[4]