We’ll count this as our being into it…
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[6.00]
Micha Cavaseno: A clenched electro-tinged number that lives and dies by its senses of tension. The “heartbeat” ‘rap’ feels a little too mealy, but then shifting into that off-key descending melody’s plummet is a real fascinating tic. Meanwhile the chorus with it’s “muffled” boom feels stifled, making the amped-up final pre-chorus all the more frustrating. IN2IT definitely appear to be at home with the dark and sleek number, yet there’s a real frustration in how much better it could be with a little bit of adjustment.
[6]
Alfred Soto: The opening bass sequencer burbles, an ominous callback to early New Order. The leap to the euphoric chorus works too. The rap, though, is truly a snapshot — a moment in time we K-pop fans will remember as a late 2010s trend.
[6]
Anna Suiter: “SnapShot” is a strange beast of a K-pop dance song. The metaphor leans a little more into the strangely sexual (“The look you’re giving me is sticky”) and the plainly seductive (“Our fingers will touch/I’m bewitching you.”) In2it don’t care either way, although maybe they should. Even if they came out of a survival show on the same network as Produce 101, Boys 24 wasn’t near as well watched and the format of the show wasn’t as easy to understand. It’s also much harder to take risks when the group isn’t backed by either a big agency or a long tenure in the industry. Even if SnapShot isn’t actually the most risky song out there, but it’s a very deliberate throwback to a kind of messy concept song that isn’t made as much anymore. “The Boys” by SNSD is what immediately comes to mind for a comparison, even if it’s a girl group song. (Although a boy group has, in fact, covered it this year.) It’s an interesting look for a boy band to do a song like this now no matter what. And it doesn’t let up until the end, either, whether you like the spoken sections or not.
[8]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: Hard to imagine a song that better pinpoints my recent, personal crisis with K-pop. “SnapShot” features the shameless genre-blending that I love so much about the genre, but it also sounds like it should’ve come out in 2014. While it’s bigger than ever, K-pop hasn’t been producing singles that I feel are pushing the music any further, and “SnapShot” just feels like it’s treading familiar territory. Having that gut feeling about K-pop compound throughout the entirety of 2018 makes hearing this incredibly frustrating.
[5]
Juana Giaimo: “SnapShot” seems to be made of many small segments that not always fit in together — the whispered “snapshot” at the end of the choruses is a good example as well as the high-pitched noises that suddenly appear out of nowhere.
[5]
Ryo Miyauchi: IN2IT are so full of themselves in “SnapShot,” but that is the song’s very delight. The self-obsession is all over the lyrics, and that chka-chka photo-snap hook becomes even better when you learn they are making those sounds themselves to soundtrack them entering a room. The real show-stealer, though, is Hyunuk’s “heart beat goes fast” bit that immediately introduces the knowingly cheesy tone set by this playfully vain single.
[6]