Needs more (less?) ska…
[Video]
[5.82]
Kayla Beardslee: It’s a convenient microcosm of Twice’s recent career arc that their three English-language singles have been better than the Korean title tracks of their respective albums. “One Spark” is nice, but its English companion song “I Got You” bursts open with an “OOOOooooOOoooh” hook that’s simple and sweet in its immediacy, whereas “One Spark” delays its best melody to the back end of the chorus. Just on the strength of the hooks, I prefer “I Got You,” but this is still more engaging than Twice’s last Korean title track, which was an overly serious take on ’70s retro that arrived years too late to the trend. There’s been a sea change with JYP girl groups recently: after a few years of muddled artistic direction, Twice, Itzy, and NMIXX are all barreling ahead with some of their most assured releases ever. “One Spark” isn’t even close to the best track on Twice’s most recent EP, but for once, it fits right in and lifts the whole project up.
[7]
Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The instrumental sounds like a yassified version of royalty-free music. Elsewhere the spark catches but develops into more of a clumsy ember than a roaring flame.
[5]
Alfred Soto: More like two sparks. This track never stops poppin’.
[0]
Leah Isobel: Late-period Twice is so poised and professional, their songs gorgeous and modern; in their hands, the explosive breakbeats on this chorus come off like a tasteful accent pillow, the ascending synth counterpoint like a classy credenza. But what is that dry-ass Disney-ass guitar supposed to be? A cheap Ikea rug?
[5]
Katherine St. Asaph: Boyfriend: Is this Pale Waves?
Me: Is this ska?
[5]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Sadly not the ska revival track the opening guitar strums imply — but this is almost as good, a pop song like a perpetual motion machine. Every hook has another, slightly catchier hook it wears as a hat, every slowdown is accompanied by a speed-up, everything is calibrated just so.
[8]
Michael Hong: Maturing in the West often means shedding some of the things you grew up with, whereas the opposite rings true in K-pop, where codependency in a group is its own form of currency. Songwriters Sim Eunjee and Melanie Fontana do an admirable job of balancing these incongruities, but there are traces of awkwardness in the ambiguity with which an “endless flame” can be an object of passionate and a lifelong friend. Despite some of the more awkward shoe-horned line readings, Twice inflect a sense of rush into the drum ‘n’ bass. It’s a way of turning the trends set by their younger cohort into an act of maturity, of transforming “One Spark” into a passionate dance, even if their lyrics aren’t forthright about it.
[6]
Nortey Dowuona: Pauline Cerrada, a songwriter on this absolute bop, has only one solo song, while Twice, assembled by the TV show Sixteen, have seven albums — three in Korean and four in Japanese, and this is a part of their thirteenth EP called With You-th. That’s the power of the K-pop industry: scooping up talent and cranking out fizzy pop bangers that the assembled musicians have to connect with, that the group members have to connect to. When it works, it produces this simpatico concept for each singer/rapper to link together, from intro verse to hook to trap breakdown to lily-white pre-chorus to nu-disco crank to drum ‘n’ bass and back again. It’s an electrifying mix.
[10]
Ian Mathers: We have covered Twice over a dozen times, and I have either missed every single one of them, or I simply haven’t retained a memory of any of those songs. Based on the perfectly fine “One Spark,” it could easily be the latter.
[5]
Joshua Minsoo Kim: An instructive K-pop single: the Atlanta bass and freestyle influence that informed Twice’s early work arrives alongside modish drum ‘n’ bass & stuttering club beats (their millionth trap breakdown is here too, but at least it’s subtle). The result is a song that’s effortlessly stylish to a fault, in constant search of a hook that can match the seamless genre blending. When they sing the chorus, it sounds like they’re losing their breath, chasing a high instead of delivering one. They finally get there when they bring in the handclaps. It’s only here that “my heart is burning” is delivered with the right balance of confidence and resignation. The production isn’t dizzying enough to conjure something epic, and so Twice are much more convincing when the passion is contained, like desire is swirling internally.
[6]
Taylor Alatorre: On a per-second basis, the most effective use of handclaps in a song so far this year.
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