You’ll never guess what the final sound in the video is…
[Video][Website]
[5.20]
Anthony Easton: It is unnerving that something you last saw in The Deer Hunter is used like this: a high-gloss video, complete with the onomatopoeic bang bang and lyrics that are explicitly suicidal. It’s an ancient metaphor — losing love is like dying — but there is something that remains uncanny in the gap of the almost manic fashion and the self destruction, especially in the last few moments. Can someone tell us what it means that this was banned by the MBC censor board?
[7]
Sabina Tang: An indubitable home run of a debut video: sexy, confident, “edgy”, and 100% aegyo-free. (I rather enjoy the recent run of K-pop video censor-baiting, without giving it more thought than to note that the gambit seems to be working out, sales-wise.) The song, too, is a mid-oughts-style production in a vein I’ve always enjoyed, and taken on its own is perhaps a tad lacking in surprise factor. Rihanna’s Russian-roulette-as-metaphor song still comes out the winner in the emotional compelling-ness sweepstakes, I guess.
[7]
John Seroff: “Roulette”‘s early nineties revivalist dancepop lifts a great deal of its swagger from the sort of good time new jack swing that wouldn’t sound out of place from any of BBD’s would-be stable, but there’s also a healthy dose of formality and mustiness in those dominant strings that evokes little more than the blankness of Dance Dance Elevator music. I’m reminded of Shanice’s which also balanced on the thin divider between VH1 and waiting room. There are worse things to wait with but better things to aspire to.
[6]
Pete Baran: The melodic intro remind me of Jean Jacques Perrey’s EVA, but unfortunately the vocals seem over sung and dominate the song. Whenever the backing attempts to break through it is battered down by theme tune singing. A few nice ideas battered down by what I can only assume is SPICA’s schtick.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Imagine Dallas Austin producing a trio of Gretchen Wilsons. Now imagine it smothered by power chords.
[4]
Michaela Drapes: For all the flirting with hard-edged glamour in the chorus, this gets a bit wooden and soft around the edges in the verses. Unfortunately, even the candy-coated nods to Bernard Hermann in the climax’s ominous timpani and eerie whistling can’t quite manage to heave this out of mediocrity.
[5]
Frank Kogan: Tense carefree pennywhistles, a pastorale backdrop painted with blotches, some smooth bang bang bang bang bang, clouds twisting romantically. None of the pieces fit. The landscape wants to stretch out comfortably, but quarters are cramped. Guns want to shoot, but trajectories drift in the breeze. I’m confused.
[6]
Iain Mew: This is just too much for me. There’s too much happening and none of it particularly appealing or exciting, especially not the strings which just will not shut up. It just ends up smothering. I wasn’t too surprised to find out that it shares writers and producers with Kara’s “Step”, which I disliked nearly as much.
[2]
Jonathan Bogart: I want the drama to be more overcharged than this; suicidal ideation requires either much, much more or much, much, less.
[5]
Brad Shoup: I admit I’m not familiar with SPICA’s house rules, but I’ve always heard that if the gun goes “BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG,” you did it wrong. Ah well. There are two major components: the sassy, cosmopolitan intro/outro melody and the body proper, which is symphonic new jack swing. Sweetune’s incorporated the bouncy and the orchestral before — with a bit more power and opacity, for whatever that’s worth. Not much in the way of rap breaks here, just various harmony combos and a melody that gains more lamentation the longer they work with it. I presume we can look for their K-black metal effort soon.
[7]