Posts Tagged ‘EXO’

I really like the concept, styling, and how it goes with the song.  Everyone’s griping about the white blouses, but I like how they look like highly stylized straitjackets, which goes with a song that’s about addiction and trying to find a cure. (“ Someone call the doctor, I need that girl.”) 

Putting aside whether or not the listener should be romanticizing this kind of love, I like that the song is dark(er) and that there’s this unhinged quality to the singer, who has a dramatic and urgent obsession.  He’s a flawed hero, if that, with his shades of megalomania and narcissism. (“ Oh she wants me, oh she’s got me, oh hurts me.”) 

But I dig it, I dig everything from the song to the presentation.  The song beckons you to come in at the beginning … into the mental asylum where its reigning overlord is your song’s protagonist/antagonist.  I love the way the verses build up before going into the chorus — the “Oh she wants me” verses are so striking — then the chorus actually tries to say something and doesn’t rely at all on one word/two words/three syllable hooks. 

YOOOOOOO this is what I’ve been waiting forrrrrrrrrrrasdklf;jalskdfjalskdf. ( Watch the practice video here.) 

Overall I’m pretty indifferent about the song.  There are some nice elements — the electric guitar, the chorus, the division of singing lines, Chanyeol’s rap break — but it’s not genius, and if you listen to it enough without watching the performance that goes with it, it gets boring pretty quickly. 

But!  Exo doesn’t need genius at this point.  So far, they’ve been so esoteric a group that this is exactly the kind of radio-friendly, middling, run-of-the-mill dance track that they need to gain a bigger, more casual audience. 

Two and a half weeks of close listening should be enough to write this, right?!  I feel like I spent these two weeks half listening out of enjoyment and half listening in a mode of study and it’s time to put this post to bed so I can stop listening to the album altogether. 

(JK, this album is really great, and you should listen to it now if you haven’t already.) 

I interviewed Will Simms about composing and producing Exo’s “Wolf” as well as SNSD’s “I Got a Boy,” and I wanted to write a little about the process of putting together the interview.  I always like reading about others’ work processes, so I wanted to give it a go for this piece. 

The whole process was spread out over four days, from start to finish.  Research took longer than usual because I didn’t know that Simms worked with SM on as many tracks as he did, and I gave all of them a listen again.  I got distracted when I accidentally wandered over to a Shinee website where a bunch of fanatic Shawols were yelling at Sean Kingston for “stealing” Shinee’s “Ready or Not.”  Anyway…

The interview with Simms lasted about an hour, and it was a really interesting conversation, I learned a lot.  Simms was ultra animated and excited about his own work process and how the tracks came together, which allowed me to throw all kinds of questions at him.  He was game to answer pretty much everything I asked, which is awesome because it gave me the opportunity to unleash my curiosities.