Korean pop song in “kinda indie rock” shocker!
[Video][Website]
[6.12]
Madeleine Lee: “Wi Ing Wi Ing” is an odd pick to have held a steady position in the top 5 of South Korea’s digital and streaming charts over the last month. Not only is it almost a year old, but it’s by a lo-fi indie rock group whose sudden fame (high-profile collaborations! variety show appearances! major label signings!) seems an equally capricious choice. It doesn’t represent the scope of the band’s output as much as, say, the beachy “Panda Bear” or psych-rock jam “Hooka.” But there’s something appealing about how elemental it is, the way the intro lays out the basic pieces and then the rest of the song is spent stacking them, the contrast of the doodling melody and the jazzy guitar fidgeting in the background. And there’s definitely something appealing in Oh Hyuk’s voice: a glow that sparks, then catches fire, then smoulders.
[9]
Alfred Soto: The momentum and the ay-ay-ay hook compensated for the kind of guitar noodling that Wyclef didn’t get away with in 1997.
[6]
Patrick St. Michel: Catchy, breezy, lounge-worthy, “Wi Ing Wi Ing” seems bound to be just pleasant save for how desperate it all actually is. Despite seeming like easy bait for upbeat YouTubers to cover, “Wi Ing Wi Ing” is a post-breakup song about feeling pathetic, to the point where even getting on the subway feels like a crime against society. It isn’t jokey — the way the vocals raise in intensity make that clear — but rather a sweet-sounding examination of feeling so down and out a fruit fly buzzing by your head feels like a slight.
[7]
Thomas Inskeep: Paul Weller should really have a writing credit here, cf. the Style Council’s “The Whole Point of No Return” — not that that’s a bad thing, far from it. But then “Wi Ing Wi Ing” gets kinda power-poppy, and I start losing interest. Strip those heavily-layered vocals out of the chorus, and it’s a good point or two better.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Lots of people clearly hear something in this — it’s got to be something other than chicken-scratch Jack Johnson, can it?
[5]
Brad Shoup: Starts off as fairly decent cafe-pop (by which I mean I couldn’t care less), and then starts accruing studio-funk guitar and some goofy Ben Folds Five-style backing gulps.
[5]
Edward Okulicz: The song sounds like it’d float away in a light breeze at first. Then you get some honest-to-goodness power-pop bluster in the form of a very powerful chorus, just after you think one’s already come and gone. Not saying that it’s entirely welcome, but it was certainly unexpected. I’ll take the rest of the song over it easy though.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Guitars make me drowsy in the best possible way. There’s something about the lull. The vocals here are clean, and the falsetto strong. There is little to dispute on “Wi Ing Wi Ing” but the chorus, cutesy in all its glory. While not perfect, Hyukoh serves up a competitive taste of easy pop, the main advantage being the verses.
[5]