okay first off i just woke up an hour ago and i am not editing this so if you see any typos no you didn't.
i impulsively listened to aespa's new pre-release single WDA (Whole Different Animal) not long after i woke up and opened my laptop. i have no reason for why i did this. i just felt like it. impulse, y'know. maybe i'll even check out the new NMIXX single lol
anyway everyone say thank you to dem jointz. not that he did anything new here but this beat fucking slaps. it's nasty as hell, almost with an industrial vibe to it (not so much in sound, just vibes), and altogether it kicks major ass. unfortunately, everything else about the song was a disappointment.
that's a little harsh! i do like the song! but i've been looping it since first listen trying to find the payoff to the "she's a whole different animal" refrain's build-up, and i'm just not finding it. it goes nowhere! the closest payoff we get is giselle's passive aggressive "oh now you wanna hear me, huh" which she repeats a few times, almost as if a threat she's about to act on, her anger growing, and then... instead of some awesome post-chorus drop or something like it, we get more of a rap break?
i feel like this song works up anticipation really well, but then we get nothing from it. which leaves me disappointed. there's a lot of potential in this one to be a real rager, and we don't get that.
dem jointz absolutely went off on the production though. i loveeeee the absolutely filthy atmosphere of this instrumental. if i'm gonna make an extremely obscure reference that no one else but me will get, then it's giving Reincarnation by MAGICAL PUNCHLINE, but more polished. (please consider seeking out the full version of this song, it gets weirder and goes harder.) it's kind of insane that that's the initial impression i got from a dem jointz track but it's 9 A.M. now and also this is my blog so i can say whatever i want.
i almost forgot to talk about the g-dragon verse. i think that says a lot more than what i'm about to say, which is that it's fineeeeeeeee. i liked it but i expected more. like, when you have fucking g-dragon on a track, you'd think he'd go way harder, and yet he doesn't??? the song switches up in beat, and while it stays appropriately grimy as the rest of the song, i would've loved to hear him on the chorus beat or something. i think this is something that LE SSERAFIM did way better on SPAGHETTI with that BTS guy.
i will say that the video is stunning. i didn't tune into Rich Man but this feels like a natural development in the dirty, cunty aesthetic they've been forming since as far back as Whiplash. also i did appreciate the several 1980s pop/rock video references i caught, if that shape-shifting effect was an intentional reference to Michael Jackson's Black or White. also casting an otherwise missing-from-the-video g-dragon as a fucking horse is quite possibly the most feminist thing aespa have ever done.
