Ingredients: Banana, some kind of berry, ginger, carrot, “Holiday.”
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[6.11]
Patrick St. Michel: This is in no way the “song of the summer” in Japan or anywhere — “Fresh!!!” has no chance, because Lyrical School are a fledgling hip-hop-themed idol group in a country where the song of the summer is “Let It Go” by a huge mile. But whatever, because this sounds like summer to me, a straight-up celebration of warm weather and vacations. Producer tofubeats serves up a breezy, sax-lined beat that’s just right for the members of the group to get goofy over. Whether it’s tripping over one another to see how high a number they can put in front of “party,” or sneaking in parts of Madonna’s “Holiday” to the song. Here’s a single where idol-pop’s obsession with intentional amateur-ness pays off, because the unpolished singing and rapping works for a song that’s supposed to be fun and frantic (like the swivel into an actual prayer to a god).
[8]
Micha Cavaseno: Marshall Jefferson-style house chords played on an acoustic guitar. Interchangeable festive old-school rap routines that equally suggest The Go! Team and Jurassic 5. Madonna homage backing melodies competing with football chants. Donuts getting tied into summer. I really want to know what’s wrong with this picture, but I’m loving this.
[7]
Alfred Soto: It’s got hints of “Holiday,” bits of Balearic disco in the keyboard riff chirping in the background, and I’d as soon pay attention to both than the OK chorus.
[5]
Megan Harrington: As someone who rarely listens closely to lyrics, I often get hooks stuck in my head, but the words are pure invention. What I like most about “Fresh!!!” is that “fresh juice / groovy, groovy baby” is exactly the sort of nonsense I already have stuck in my head.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Folks can live on vibes alone, and “Fresh!!!” nearly nourishes. It’s charming, but still muted: lots of great mic handoffs, and the gangchant deal is still thrilling, but everything’s kept at a modest fizz. The “Holiday” quotes are a final gambit; they’re giving off cartoon sweat beads.
[6]
Will Adams: So many good referents tossed into the fray — “Holiday” interpolations, that drum break, ’80s keyboards — and yet the one that sticks out is the vocal cadence that unfortunately resembles Millionaires.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Ostensibly a cute little casserole of 80s pop tropes, but that snatch of “Holiday” is like a stick of celery that you put in because the recipe said so, only to find that at the end the whole thing tastes like that. The total amateurishness of it is kind of appealing, but the song’s got no kinetic energy.
[5]
Jonathan Bradley: For more reasons than the Madonna flip, “Fresh!!!” sounds like what you might get if The Avalanches were ever to take the reins of a girl band. Languid key stabs, far-off horn noodles, and interstitial excursions through faux-flamenco guitar pirouettes translate Since I Left You into a model of singalong concision it could never have been. I should not, however, downplay the contribution of the song’s actual producer, tofubeats; this style, watery, propulsive, and rhythmic, is as recognisably his own. “Fresh!!!” is so many summers past — cruises and beach parties and day drinking — but the Lyrical School members make it this summer right now too, not basking in tofubeats’ warm sunshine but bouncing through it, piling words upon words, scratches upon DJ shout-outs, Japanese upon English, interrupting one another and spelling out the simple parts so they become even simpler, easier, more effortless. It’s a party song with its own tutorial, in the tradition of Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” and the Jackson Five’s “ABC.” It’s how summer was meant to be.
[9]
Katherine St Asaph: Did you know this is an actual sentence on the Wikipedia page for “Holiday”? “Jellybean and Madonna sent the demo to their friend, Fred Zarr so he could embellish the arrangement and program the song with his synthesizer magic.” Tofubeats killed the magic. I thought you weren’t supposed to do that!
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