Everybody know I’m a mother … wait, wrong song.
[Video][Website]
[5.67]
Iain Mew: I didn’t like “Blue” much and still feel bad for suggesting we cover it before the total blast that was “Fantastic Baby” showed up. My first reaction to “Monster” was that it was more of the same sappiness that I wasn’t going to like, especially when my more K-pop knowledgeable friends were scornful about it. It doesn’t make much better use than “Blue” of the group’s rappers, but its prettiness is more consistent and they do much more enjoyable things with that prettiness. Much of that is down to the total weirdness of the English chorus out of context — “I love you/Baby, I’m not a monster” is all kinds of protest-too-much fucked-up and the discordant piano hit and queasy strings seem to know it.
[6]
Anthony Easton: You know, something this ingratiating and insipid, where the work is to convince the person in question (and perhaps audience) that there is nothing monstrous going on, seems more disingenuous — the passive aggressive need for affection much harder to both avoid or read than genuine anger.
[4]
Alfred Soto: How anyone could mistake the whey-voiced boy singing lead as a monster perplexes me, especially with those chorus keyboard stabs buttressing him. His need isn’t even particularly monstrous.
[4]
Will Adams: As far as songs that sound like dance remixes of piano ballads, this is quite good. This could be overexposure to Guetta et. al talking, but a bass that hums instead of belches and a front-and-center piano and strings arrangement make this sound so light, perfectly matching the sweet conceit of the whole piece. My one qualm is that the verses sound overstuffed with syllables to the point of being arrhythmic. That chorus is a thing of beauty, though.
[7]
Jonathan Bogart: Increasingly it seems that to listen to K-pop without watching the videos is to have only half of the intended experience. The video for this one makes some unusual choices: it splits up the boys so that none of them ever share the frame with another, driving home the boy-band conceit of a collective that speaks in an individual voice — and also, incidentally, allowing the costuming and effects to get as outlandish as possible without being overwhelming. This, I guess, is what’s meant by a U.S. push — individuate the performers as much as possible (though with all of the usual costuming changes and shaky-cam I couldn’t keep them straight), sing a chorus entirely in English, and don’t emphasize the pack-as-much-as-possible-in frenziedness that gained K-pop its worldwide following in the first place.
[7]
Brad Shoup: The engineer ought to rest easy. Piano and synthgauze and bass pulse in parallel, giving “Monster” a perverse amount of danceability. Musical-theater moments like the discordant pound and MGM motifs have hit me both ways, so I’ll nudge positive because that’s where “I think I’m sick” left me. Though sadly not in Big Bang’s target demo, I still have to voice a strong preference for T.O.P’s baleful baritone timbre. I’d like an EP of that, please.
[6]