Maybe needs some whistling…?
[Video][Website]
[6.11]
Jessica Doyle: Still not sure we needed a K-pop “Careless Whisper.” Still not sure this was the duo to deliver it.
[5]
Iain Mew: I love this for loading up on grand string sweeps and smooth vibes but never quite letting them settle, the song pulling away at the last just like the singers and the protagonists caught between wanting in and wanting out. It makes for a captivatingly tense three-way dance: Hyuna, Hyunseung and the ghost of “Careless Whisper.”
[8]
Alfred Soto: Impressive strings and woo-ooh-oohs heighten the tension, and the beats and vocals are closer to this lost gem of early nineties clatter und drang.
[6]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Promises a combo of speedboat ennui and Jermaine Stewart keyboard smashes but delivers an embittered duet that ends in an outburst of gunshots. Its expertly-applied artifice allows someone’s truth in through the cracks. It could be that past-it sneer in Hyuna’s voice or an emphatic Hyunseung, it could even be that abrupt halt to the song, the sonic equivalent of being told to pack your shit and leave.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: “Now” is not convincing me that this pair should have existed for more than one titular single (still fantastic), as it fails to highlight what makes either of these two shine individually, instead choosing to wrap what should be a plodding ballad in some lazy pop.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Yet another fake-out intro: the New Jack touch disappears, and the bedroom R&B blooms into high-stepping, mildly disco elegance. Not unlike “Trouble Maker,” then, but with the whiff of lost opportunity.
[5]
Mallory O’Donnell: What’s decidedly interesting about “Now” is how well it evokes an alternate Then — at some strange intersection of 80’s darkside R&B (think “Rumors,” “The Rain”) and 90’s boy-band house, a new iteration of New Jack Swing emerges, where the girls have as much say as the fellas. The sub-Minaj delivery of that say is the only real downside.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: There’s a fine line between, sophistipop and elevator music, and the opening waft of this before the vocals is on the wrong side. It’s flat and dramaless, even with the modest sweep of the strings. Even its sophistipop is soporific, although some interest comes from how its melody recalls “Could it Be Magic?” at its climactic point.
[4]
Madeleine Lee: The day the MV for “Now” was released was the same day that the Korean-language version of the musical Bonnie and Clyde, with the tagline “For us, there is no tomorrow,” ended its run in Seoul. “Now,” whose Korean title also translates to “No Tomorrow,” recasts the fighting-as-flirting couple from “Trouble Maker” as similarly doomed and reckless lovers, going so far as to transpose the chorus melody from the first single into a more appropriately tragic key. Instead of trading off lines, this time the two alternate verses to tell a single story, and even harmonize in the middle section. They’re no longer adversaries, but partners. It’s still hard for me to fully buy Hyuna and Hyunseung as a romantic pairing, and naming the album Chemistry comes across as a bit desperate. But Trouble Maker’s strong point, if not passion, is professionalism, and on record, at least, their execution is flawless.
[8]