Maybe enable Hard Mode next time…?
[Video]
[5.83]
TA Inskeep: A snap music breakdown and a mightily bass-heavy track are two things I didn’t expect from one of K-pop’s hottest girl groups; LE SSERAFIM really are making it look easy here (sorry). “Easy” just glides along, so smooth.
[7]
Kayla Beardslee: For a song about making it look easy, there isn’t much about the topline of this song that sounds like it requires work in the first place. LE SSERAFIM are at their best when they’re going hard over a beat that requires the utmost commitment, but this is just a bland rip of dated hip-hop trends with a recorder loop that makes me want to scratch my ears out. RIP fall 2022 TSJ, you would have loved “Antifragile.”
[3]
Leah Isobel: “Easy” doesn’t feel quite so resolutely its own thing the way that “Antifragile” and “Eve, Psyche, and the Bluebeard’s Wife” did; it’s basically a Tinashe song. I love Tinashe!
[7]
Michael Hong: On “Good Bones,” another of the group’s fascinating intros, that final line sounds earned: “easy, crazy, hot, I can make it.” Maybe it’s not really, maybe these words they spit and scream are profound only to themselves, better answered with a shrug and a “well, yeah.” But as they motor through the amped-up instrumental, they sell it: “in the end, we all die / half of our life will be suffering,” Kazuha mutters. The drums are aching and the guitar roars back at her, but it’s this bite that makes it so fascinating, the hint of weakness and vulnerability that makes the group’s confidence act feel appropriate. On “Easy,” LE SSERAFIM’s rough edges are sanded down as they huff and puff over the dry instrumental, the titular word wheezed out with the autotuned-backing sounding like a necessary support. The anxious rush that made “Good Bones” feel so astounding is absent as LE SSERAFIM sound like dolls here, their confidence a blankly feigned act.
[2]
Will Rivitz: If “making it look easy” is doing at-home Positions karaoke sprawled on your couch while your friends ignore you to scroll Insta, then sure, I guess.
[3]
Katherine St. Asaph: Pleasant! Also situated exactly on the edge of sounding dated — as in, I genuinely cannot tell whether it does or not.
[6]
Ian Mathers: I’m not sure what’s actually making that flute-like loop you hear at the beginning (and throughout); maybe it’s a specific instrument I’m not familiar with, but it sounds to me like a wonky recorder and partly as a result of that it’s very charming. It brings a fittingly casual air to a song about making it look easy, like surely you can pull off this kind of vibe with just about any kind of materials? I’m not even sure what does or does not qualify as “trap” anymore (if I ever knew) but surely if this does it’s one of the least outwardly aggressive expressions of the form. Kinda works, honestly.
[7]
Taylor Alatorre: I don’t know if it was intentional that nearly all of the casually badass “I run this shit”-type lyrics are sung in English, while the admissions of imperfection and struggle are, from the non-Korean audience’s perspective, hidden behind a language barrier. But with Le Sserafim, a group that takes such pride in their meticulously crafted identity that they sing their own name twice on a 5-song EP, nothing seems to be unintentional. Having built their brand upon anthems of disruption and defiance, “EASY” serves as a well-timed reprieve from all the noise, a chance to sprawl themselves out over a melodic trap beat, count their checks, and survey all they’ve conquered. They resist any temptations toward showiness that might upend the carefully composed balance, confident that a line like “rip it up like ballet” will make its genius known even if it isn’t shouted from the rafters.
[8]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: As another example of LE SSERAFIM’s inspira-pop, “Easy” is initially underwhelming with a light trap beat and flute riff: it sounds lightweight following singles like “Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife.” That’s also the strength of the song — “Easy” sounds easy but not tossed-off, proving their point. It’s confident. It’s not their best, but it works.
[7]
Nortey Dowuona: Amanda Ibanez you will always be famous with the Technicians.
[9]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Not the best sleek K-pop dance track named “Easy” out there but a perfectly fine substitute in a pinch. LE SSERAFIM have been more interesting than this on every one of their prior singles, but the cool, cipher-like nature of “Easy” suits them oddly well — against a trap beat generic enough that I wondered if it were a sample of something from Atlanta circa 2017, the five of them muster a poise that they lacked on some of their earlier work. It’s solid enough, but the closer you examine it the less there is to truly love here.
[6]
Alfred Soto: Too easy.
[5]