8bit kpop bloops and blips for your weekend!
[Video][Website]
[6.17]
Thomas Inskeep: Girl group K-Pop doesn’t get much frothier than this — and it’s such a good, smiley, upbeat time, I don’t even mind the predictable video game sound fx in a song titled “Power Up.” It helps that Red Velvet are so irrepressible. And also the chorus’s odd nod to “It’s the End of the World As We Know It.” No, really.
[8]
Alfred Soto: While it lacks the juicy fruit spritz of “Red Flavor,” “Power Up” charges forward infatuated with its bounce.
[7]
Stephen Eisermann: Although I admire the pep in the song, it feels a bit too juvenile and beneath these girls. The verses toe the line of cheeky camp well enough and the pre-chorus is bubblegum bliss, but the chorus is infantile bombast and it makes it really hard to listen to the song seriously.
[3]
Will Adams: While the chiptune-inspired production is cute at the start, by the end the 8-bit arpeggios and GameBoy switch-ons become more tell than show. The “power up” in question involves double time, but when considering other musical power-ups of yore, it falls a bit flat.
[5]
Ryo Miyauchi: There’s still a slight feeling that Red Velvet’s trying to produce moments rather than letting it happen on its own. I’ll forgive the Minions-recalling “ba-nana” humming, but the “let’s power up!” phrase seems almost too much on the nose for a single with a production accented by video-game coin jingles. More natural are the hooks writing out their feeling of desire, like Irene’s stoic “I want it” and definitely Joy’s “it’s mineeee!” in the bridge that draws out the most from her personality.
[6]
Alex Clifton: Red Velvet has remained my favourite K-pop girl group because they’re not afraid to get weird. I don’t just mean the surreal music videos (pizza boy murder cult! flower monster in acid-trip Narnia! worst picnic ever!), but also with the structure of the songs themselves. There’s always something gently off-kilter with Red Velvet’s singles–accidentals, unexpected chord changes, a bit that comes in sooner whereas a more “conventional” song would’ve let another measure go by. It’s a different kind of melodic math than Max Martin’s ever used and it’s exactly why their stuff manages to stick. We’ve got a hell of a hook with the “bananananana” and 8-bit power-up noises scattered through, and the chorus is pure sugar. In other words, it’s exactly all the stuff I love in pop music given the usual Red Velvet maximalist gloss.
[8]