We could describe everything with one single number…
[Video]
[5.20]
Katherine St. Asaph: One point to justify each point:
1) “…the victory of a nihilism from which it will take us years to recover, if we even can.”
2) The 2010s were apocalypse pop; the late 2000s were recession pop; the 2020s are doomer pop. “Indie sleaze” revival, JADE’s schtick, this, that’s enough examples to get me a cushy trend-forecasting job right? (Not an example: Brat — too carefree.)
3) A preliminary theory of doomer pop: it’s the bigness of apocalypse pop without the earnestness (perhaps it’s closer to trollgaze), and the mean self-aware trashiness of recession pop with a vague, purported social consciousness. Emphasis on “purported”; coming from Alice Longyu Gao it’s a parody of Los Angeles girlies from the inside, but coming from HYBE and Geffen’s spokespeople it becomes toxic industry selling us its toxicity, although it does bang.
4) Alternatively, considering that this originated on the Chainsmokers’ TikTok, this is basically “#SELFIE.” (The Chainsmokers do not seem to be directly involved, if that makes you feel better.)
5) The directors of “Bad Romance” and The Substance are owed some royalties from the video.
6) This is also basically “Sexy and I Know It”; I looked up, with some trepidation, what Redfoo’s doing these days, and the answer is playing tennis. Good for him.
7) Half the YouTube comments point out the bifurcation of the glowing comments of the past week-ish vs. the disgusted YouTube comments from last month. I’ll have you know that I speedran that whole trajectory in 1 minute.
8) That YouTube clip closed with an autoplay ad for Ticketmaster, which feels tonally correct.
[8]
Ian Mathers: The Tesla thing is a nothingburger (you can’t even call it clout chasing or whatever), so we’re left with… what? Both this and “Touch” are fun as hell and sound great, and crucially they do both of those things in extremely distinct and different ways. I see in the comments a lot of people who apparently only like certain types of music complaining about this song, and that’s pretty gnarly in its own right.
[9]
Leah Isobel: God bless the gooners, the stoners, the girls on molly at the club, the go-go dancers, the servers and hostesses working on three hours of sleep, the cam models, the bedroom DJs, the influencers, the menaces. God bless everyone seeking a real thrill amidst a culture of ironed-out irony, flattened flatness, listless listicles, affected affectlessness. God bless every girl who’s entered into the fucking entertainment industry, knowing it’s extractive and manipulative and cruel but hoping their dreams can still be real. God bless the joy of getting everything you want and the terror and rage of knowing that it’s not enough, can never be enough; god bless the sadness of losing the game (because you know it meant something) and the sadness of winning (because its meaning was in the act, not the outcome). God bless the broken fourth wall, the arch engagement-bait that loops back around, and the choreography you had to practice for a year and a half until you got it right. God bless boba tea, fried chicken, and – oh my god – that new beat. God bless the true subject of pop music: the almighty sensation. God bless “Gnarly,” the worst song I’ve ever heard.
[10]
Will Adams: Oh my god, shoes.
[7]
Nortey Dowuona: How do you go from making this to making big fish theory throwaways for ransom K-pop groups? And why are they good?
[6]
Iain Mew: Co-writer Alice Longyu Gao has done songs in similar sonic territory before and since, but in the specifics, the exact robot voice and the first-line boba, it’s hard not to see the influence of Babymint. Where Babymint frequently use the contrast between sweet and obnoxious sounds in ingenious ways, though, the closest “Gnarly” comes is a contrast between obnoxious and even more obnoxious. The result is that it’s merely pummeling when it should be thrilling.
[4]
Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Sorry — point of clarification: is being “gnarly” good or bad? Furthermore: is “Gnarly” good or bad? What’s happening?
[5]
Jel Bugle: The words are not good — why are they singing these weird things? There are some good bits, but I can’t see them competing with K-Pop groups with a song so weak. I feel like they risk alienating potential fans; they’ll need to find a more subtle way to be in your face.
[5]
Alfred Soto: Through the scrunches and crunches a sound emerges, not unattractive. What else?
[5]
Alex Clifton: “Gnarly” is one of the few dance crazes to hit my TikTok algorithm. I’m usually fed a stream of cat and cooking videos, so it made me sit up. The frustrating thing about “Gnarly” is that the chorus is so damn good and hooky, but the rest of the song just doesn’t live up to the promise. It’s nothing new—plenty of songs have gone viral on TikTok thanks to a slammin’ chorus and not much else—but the verses of “Gnarly” feel particularly half-baked. The opening lists a bunch of things that are supposedly gnarly: boba tea (sweet and tasty, not exactly super hardcore), Tesla (quite the choice in 2025), fried chicken (??????), and partying in the Hollywood Hills (too many syllables for the line, although the only thing that may actually be gnarly). Frankly this should’ve stayed a draft until the writers could’ve come up with something stronger to string together with this gloriously big, dumb chorus. The overwhelming effect is not “the shit,” it’s just kind of shit.
[4]
Kayla Beardslee: This song makes me think mean things about the people involved in its cynical creative decisions. I will not say them: I’ll simply say that I don’t think that’s the mark of a particularly good song.
[4]
Mark Sinker: “Are you OK?” a character in Tom Hardy’s TV show Taboo asks another. The series is set in 1814 and no one (screams your maddening anachronism radar) said “OK” like this yet — it emerged from a silly Boston-New York banter-fad in the 1840s. Gnarly was 80s surfer slang, did it came back? If I’m post-punk enough still to be happy when song-topics shift away from sex or romance, but I’m also post-punk enough to demand that speculative street philology submit to street peer review (maddening radar ahoy). Or else range beyond one random word: now do spiffy, clipping, all sir garnet, boshta, socko, gear…! Now do random!! This does seem like it’s buzzy-crappy enough to get a [10] from me. Except it’s just so indifferently will-this-do? What happened to Pinkydoll anyway? I liked her.
[1]
Al Varela: Unlistenable. They reheated Blackpink’s nachos except they let it cook for twenty minutes so the microwave is a sticky burnt mess. Can’t even bother to make its embarrassing lyrics even a little bit funny. Absolutely not.
[0]
Claire Davidson: I won’t pretend hyperpop is the most coherent genre, but what makes the sound click even at its most absurd are the half-dozen layers of irony that usually accompany the material, allowing every strange turn of phrase to become fodder for the most pit. “Gnarly,” by contrast is a Frankensteinian hybrid of product placement, rich-girl posturing, and general obnoxiousness along with K-pop’s earnest theatricality, which only calls further attention to every lyrical non-sequitur and bit of dated cultural appropriation. (I understand it’s Manon who adds the “gang, gang, gang” ad-libs, but since she’s the only Black member of Katseye, the moment still feels token and laughable.) I could just list every ridiculous line in this song and call it a day: equating boba tea, the Tesla brand, and fried chicken in the same verse? “Hottie, hottie, like a bag of Takis/I’m the shit”? Opening a verse by calling presumptive audience members “fucking boring, dumb bitch[es]”? But what really sours “Gnarly” for me is that it pairs its hyperpop affectations with the most ill-fitting, garish K-pop tropes imaginable, incorporating blown-out synths and doll-like stuttering of the word “na-na-na-na-na-gnarly” in the same breath. Purposefully bad music gaining traction is nothing new, but in an industry as meticulously manufactured as K-pop, there’s something especially cynical about building a song this brazenly unlistenable and hoping that the inevitable controversy inundates listeners with its perverse earworm potential. I know it’s bait, but I can’t ignore my own ears.
[1]
Taylor Alatorre: F*CK U ALICE LONGYU GAO YOU THINK UR ANDY WARHOL BUT UR NOT!! <3
[9]