Not (just) a (member of) Girl(‘s Day); Also a Woman.
[Video][Website]
[7.00]
Madeleine Lee: It only occurred to me later how remarkable Girl’s Day’s “Something” is: a powerful-sounding song about being a woman in a moment of vulnerability, where neither fact feels like a contradiction of the other. “I Am A Woman Too” takes place after the breakup, and counter to its eye-rolling premise — “I try to be strong on the outside, but I’m only female, baby!” — it puts its vulnerability out in the open, with Minah’s normally loud, vibrato-heavy voice barely holding up the ends of each line on the chorus. The instrumental responds with the comfort she needs but can’t ask for; even the dude who won’t shut up in the booth is shouting encouragement, not instructions.
[9]
Jonathan Bogart: While I get the impression that the whirling “I love you”s in the second half are meant to be an outpouring of irrepressible emotion, the whole thing, both production- and delivery-wise, has been so reserved and colorless that it feels more like a calm rehearsal for falling in love than the real despairing thing.
[6]
Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa: That kickdrum intro is so powerful it inmediately gives you very high expectations, but then the jazzy chords, the melodic bassline and the disco-string stabs in the chorus manage to cash that check. Minah’s vocal delivery, somewhere between vulnerable and sensual, works like a charm, it finds the necessary space to shine in a track that sounds a step ahead of everything Girl’s Day (Minah’s group) put out this year, which was nice, but not on par with their best.
[7]
Iain Mew: I like the initial contrast between percussive thump and Minah’s delicate glide, both a striking intro and one which sets up where the song is going. When it builds to the combination of her “I love you” and the “EHH!” interjections, it’s the same thing blown up huge.
[7]
Patrick St. Michel: Oh, a pleasant enough bit of tear-stained funk about how heartbreak reduces us all to wimpering blobs starting at clocks and binge watching Narcos to fill the void. That’s nice, but you know I’ve heard that sentiment plenty and it is all pleasant enough but…whoa wait what? This final minute is just total release, the repressed flowing out in all-together-now fashion! Now this is how you deal with pain, by just belting out the truth.
[8]
Will Adams: A pleasant slice of groove-pop — file next to “Love On Top,” perhaps — for the first half, a weak “I love you” chorus for the second half. Minah’s subdued performance is a saving grace; even when the buzzy synths perk up, she keeps her cool.
[6]
Brad Shoup: Once it gets going it’s hard to imagine it stopping. But it’s those light taps on the brakes — her shouting “sing it with me now!”, the funky synth that should probably have an agent by now — that make this for me. Also, that backbeat’s kinda go-go.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: There’s a swing and a groove to this; if a strut could be thoughtful, then that’s what this is for its first half. But for mine, when the second half of the song is given over to the bloodless “I love you” repeated over and over, I start hoping for a rap interlude or a key change or something, anything. Then the end comes, and that’ll do.
[5]
Micha Cavaseno: The lock & step funk groove of the production is bouncy as hell despite maintaining an impressive rigidity; for all the seemingly overwhelming despair riddling Minah’s song, its those “YA GONNA BE ALRIGHT GIRL!!!”s and the “SING IT WITH ME NOW”s that really drive the stoicism home. It’s all about avoidance and distracting oneself from the needs in one’s life. The irony is that for all the promise of self-reliance and stoicism, one wants the chance to crumble and be cradled away. And yet, that’s not what the song allows for. It’s beguiling where the contradiction seems to make it disorienting and all the more fascinating.
[8]
Jessica Doyle: “I Am a Woman Too” reminds me of B1A4’s “Lonely“, which deals with the same emotional state (the post-breakup depths), uses a similar level of detail (Minah does the laundry and catches up on TV shows; Jinyoung contemplates the clothes his now-ex liked), and has the same problem with the “hey”s in the background, as the state being described is by its nature solitary. With Minah it’s worse, since she’s supposed to be alone up there. To the gentleman in the background: the “I feel you, girl” and “You’re going to be okay” would be mildly comforting if they weren’t part of a package of constantly jumping around in the background. Let Minah be. She’s got to work through this herself.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: I love the craziness of Girl’s Day’s “Ring My Bell” from earlier this year, but this solo single from Minah is even better precisely because it’s not at all manic. She swings on a smooth R&B groove (that somehow reads pop rather than R&B, and I’m not sure why) (oh wait, maybe it’s because this reads early ’90s R&B of the ilk that crossed over pop like crazy) (like a more low-key TLC) (that must be it), with the lightest hypeman exhortations accenting the proceedings, strings providing a similar function, and an “I love you/love you/love you” chorus that kinda makes me melt. This gets me right here *points at heart*.
[9]