I was gonna be all perturbed at this only being the second solo HyunA track we’ve covered, and then I learned this is the first single since “Bubble Pop”…
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Iain Mew: Weird now to think that to K-Pop onlookers in 2011, HyunA’s “Bubble Pop” was considered a huge viral success. Its mere tens of millions of YouTube views have now been dwarfed by her alternate version of “Gangnam Style”, never mind the real thing. In the (very funny) video for “Ice Cream”, she looks to ride both the Psy association and the too-sexy-for-TV approach of “Bubble Pop,” and it seems to be working; the video was at one point sitting in the middle of a Psy&HyunA lockout of the top three in YouTube’s most-watched videos. The song is hip-hop leaning pop that doesn’t have quite as many tricks as “Bubble Pop”, but its grinding directness and cartoon hooks (“cream cream cream cream”) are addictive even without the added visuals.
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Brad Shoup: I was convinced “Bubble Pop” would enter the Anglophonic thoughtscape, but that fate fell to a (male) rapper going full electro-house. I underestimated dude’s charisma, and I’m not sure Hyuna’s — considerable though it may be — can overcome this kind of Neptunes-in-molasses.
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Katherine St Asaph: This was a garish mess when it was called “Candy Shop.” Adding brattiness doesn’t fix that.
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Anthony Easton: I love pop songs where the oral fixations between food and sex collapse into a sticky mess. This is better than most.
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Will Adams: In the wake of PSY, K-pop advocates have been piling on the pressure for more artists to break in the States. I’m not so sure that a repurposed Pussycat Dolls track is the way.
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Alfred Soto: Those synthesizers coat the Kelis-copping chorus with a shellac of impressive density, which is why forward movement is closer to a bulldozer than light rail.
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Jonathan Bogart: I love the chunkiness of the synths, and the smoothness of the groove. If I had less self-respect, I’d try to work that into a metaphor for, like, rocky road.
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Patrick St. Michel: HyunA’s not the first K-Pop act to use ice cream as the central image in a song — f(x) had “Ice Cream” while earlier this year Orange Caramel released “Milkshake.” Like those two songs, HyunA’s “Ice Cream” features a few silly lines built around the titular dessert — “I got 31 flavors” stands out — but it’s also a lot more assertive than either of those songs. Orange Caramel and f(x) both see the lover in each song as the reason to melt or get “drunk with love,” but HyunA says she’s making the boys melt like ice cream. In the same way the sudden dubstep drop of “Bubble Pop” flipped an otherwise bouncy song on its head, she turns a typically innocent subject (at least in the realm of Asian pop) into a come on. That it’s backed by such high-energy music only makes it better.
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