We put these (alleged) upstarts in their place…
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[4.90]
Alfred Soto: Accelerate the tempo and it’s mid ’00s top forty party rap — call it Akon instead. Cool accordion though.
[5]
Madeleine Lee: Just over a year ago, we reviewed Winner’s “Empty”, written by two members of YG trainee Team B, the youthful, hip-hop-oriented foil to Winner’s Team A. iKON is Team B plus one new member (picked up through another survival show, naturally), and for balance’s sake I have to ask the same question I asked of Winner — what should this group sound like? I thought I knew, but pre-release single “My Type” surprised me by emulating the chill café rap of Verbal Jint, Giriboy, or iKON’s YG seniors Epik High. Perhaps they’d be a mirror version of Winner, making similarly slow songs to exhibit the diversity of Korean hip-hop beyond try-hard trap. But then the actual title tracks came out. “Rhythm Ta” is more what I expected: twisty, noisy, reminiscent of a G-Dragon and Taeyang song, and, frankly, boring. Not that a slow song like “My Type” or “Empty” or “Airplane” (iKON’s other title track) isn’t also boring, but that’s boredom inherent to that genre, whereas “Rhythm Ta” executes its genre so well that it creates boredom.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: In a bit of good timing for this blurb, f(x)’s new album came out today, and is a pretty good reminder of what has made the current generation of K-Pop so (deservedly) hyped up. They take sounds that have become well established in American and English pop, and then find new angles to them, transforming the familiar into something new. “Rhythm Ta” represents the opposite of this approach, as it just feels like staring at something you’ve seen hundreds of times before. The lyrics are clever, devoted firmly to how good the song is to the point it will even make whales dance, but the music itself is — just phoned in trap sounds? K-Pop has done so much with this sound in the last five years, that simply laying it out isn’t particularly novel.
[4]
Anthony Easton: I don’t know what I like best: when it sounds like they sing “Rico got it popping,” or all the subtle layering of “nananana”s. Both, maybe.
[8]
Thomas Inskeep: 2015 is the year I fell in love with K-pop and finally understood the great breadth and depth of the genre, but iKON is not gonna be included in that cohort. Not only does this have a version of the dreaded “Thrift Shop” synthesized sax, musically it’s as simplistic and unsophisticated as the worst Macklemore tracks too, with a beat that just kinda sits there, inert, while the iKON guys rap over it.
[3]
Jonathan Bogart: A delightfully goofy slice of party rap undermined by the typical K-pop group failing of sticking around for one or two more sections than necessary in order to service all the members of the band.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Got vague idol shade for your droogs! I dunno if baroque lite can even be a thing, but that mincing synth-horn line might qualify. iKON makes liberal use of the upsing that Miley Cyrus used to such great effect on “Party in the U.S.A” — they don’t have as winning a message, but they do that thing Korean rappers like where they give you lots of time-management advice.
[6]
John Seroff: Most of “Rhythm Ta” screams “algorithmically arranged for maximum success” so it sort of sails over my head, but then there’s reality-show winner Kim “Bobby” Jiwon’s bars. From about 1.43 to 2.06, he puts on a masterclass of bluster and syncopation that recalls Marshall Mathers’ glory years. It’s an amazing cherry on a so-so milkshake.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Even at under four minutes, “Rhythm Ta” feels a bit overlong. There’s good elements here, but they’ve been squeezed into a shell that doesn’t flatter them. The biggest problem is that the slickly syruped production works better under rapid-fire rhymes and underpinning vocal hooks (whoas and nananas) than it does over the dragging titular hook.
[3]
Micha Cavaseno: The minute those warped “Mentasm” licks turn into toady saxes and organs, is the minute the already lame gestures at swag and confidence on a record like “Rhythm Ta” are revealed for what they really are: dated posturing. Plus that hook nor this beat aren’t snagging a soul, let’s be serious.
[2]