Despite boasting incredible album sales and hailing from a proven agency, I couldn’t find the reasoning to include CRAVITY in my “top rookies of 2020” list last month. To me, their music thus far has been the definition of “generic boy group.” It’s never been objectively bad, but CRAVITY haven’t yet released anything that sounds distinct to them. I get the sense that their A&R team is pulling tracks from a big bag labeled “K-pop: Male” and cobbling them together into albums. Then, they feign a sense of cohesion by connecting those albums in a halfhearted “series” with evocative titles. It’s very “K-pop 101,” and that makes it difficult to get too excited about their music.
Nevertheless, I am the eternal optimist when it comes to new comebacks. CRAVITY may not have impressed me yet, but some of their b-sides have been great. Unfortunately, new single My Turn is anything but. Honestly, it’s been awhile since my first reaction to a new song was: “are they serious?” But My Turn’s reliance on a “skrrt skrrt” chorus is confounding, to say the least.
Through most of its running time, My Turn bops along like you’d expect it to, driven by blocky percussion and the usual nothingness that characterizes too many verses these days. All the familiar elements are present, and they come together to forge an engaging – if forgettable – groove. The pre-chorus is a bit silly, but also catchy in an NCT-lite way.
Then, we hit the chorus. This segment sees the guys literally mimicking the sounds of a car, then continuing to weave that silly affectation across the rest of the hook. A satisfying blend of airy vocals acts as a salve, but it can’t simply paint over the ridiculousness that preceded it. I mean, I’m all for car metaphors and soundscapes, and a more daring song might have fashioned honks, slamming doors and skidding tires into the fabric of the beat itself. My Turn attempts this during its standout bridge, but rather than be bold and ambitious, too much of the track comes across as bad parody.
| Hooks | 5 |
| Production | 7 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 6.75 |
Today is songs that sound like other agency’s song. This one is all NCT / SuperM family in 2020. Boys and cars. (also Stray Kids cars briefly in God’s Menu) The edgy sounding synth hook vroom vroom vroom Skrrt skrrt is all NCT127 circa 2016-17.
It even has someone that sounds like Ten, right around 0:36.
It is not Ten.
I mean, Cravity seems to very very good at following trends with something well produced, but they always come after the one we all gush over, so they get instant demerits for that. The song is fine. It just sounds like other songs.
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At least the boys look good. The most disappointing part is that WJSN’s Exy wrote this mess…
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She did not make the music, she just wrote the lyrics so this is not her fault. If anything, it’s starship’s fault for not finding a producer to give justice to exy’s lyrics.
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This sounds like SuperM if SuperM did a soundtrack for the Cars franchise.
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I like the bridge and some of the percussive instrumentation, but ooof, early contender for worst chorus of the year
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I don’t know if I’m just tired but the chorus sent me into a full fit of laughter.
I know that ‘skrrrt’ in kpop is meant to evoke badassery and not cringe, but making it the centerpiece of the chorus is particularly courageous. Something about the line between bravery and stupidity.
I don’t mean to be overly harsh, though. The rest of the song is fine, I enjoyed listening to it. The vocals at the end of the chorus are nice as well.
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Omg me too! At the first skrt! I just burst into uncontrollable laughter and shouted “they can’t be serious” into a very quite office lol
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This is easily their worst title track. I don’t really want to listen to this ever again, which is the pretty much the same way I feel about NCT U’s Work It. They both sound like songs that just didn’t have enough effort put into them in the writing process. The performance is fine, it’s just the song itself that I think is bad. Hopefully the rest of the mini is better.
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I guess to be much happier than this, because it’s January 19th 2021 and we already have the worst ep of the century. Things are gonna get better.
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Gosh, the frequent but irrelevant use of “skrrt” is my personal kpop pet peeve, but it’s usually sidelined in a way that I can almost ignore it. This one is so prominent (an entire chorus built on it!), that I just started laughing and cringing simultaneously. Their last album had some fun b-sides, which didn’t seem to carry over to this one.
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I really like the pre-chorus. The bridge is okay. The rest is really really bad.
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This is so dead-on NCT/SuperM with even the same composers. I was certain you would put it in the 7.5-8.5 range
Anyways it’s pretty obviously flawed despite all the “sounds” and production quality being very solid. Shows that the name/company you slap on top of a song counts for 75% of the reception since it’s very in-line with Tiger Inside/Simon Says which got much better reception here and all over the kpopsphere despite also being slight misfires with the same sonics. This however is getting trashed everywhere, which is not a surprise.
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To be fair, those songs didn’t build their entire chorus around racecar noises.
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Simon says didn’t skrrt skrrt killa
… … … we’re not going to start that again, alt lyrics to Simon Says, are we?
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The moment I heard the words vroom vroom skrrt in the chorus I immediately thought “well Nick is NOT going to like THIS.”
If it just wasn’t so high pitched and repetitive, I might have been okay with it. But they did it in such a weird not badass way I can’t get behind it. (It sounds like cardi b saying okurrr). It genuinely ruins the song for me which makes me sad because I like everything else for the most part.
The raps and PRECHORUS have a nice groove to them, the choreo is pretty nice (but not as good as their past title tracks IMO), the percussion is mostly pleasing to listen to, and the second verse in particular is a complete BOP to me.
But that chorus…sighs. This is why we can’t have nice things…
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…oh my goodness.. you’re right..the chorus sounds like Cardi B noises. This has some really good meme potential.
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I literally can’t stop hearing it when I attempt to listen to the song now- it’s a problem 😆
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The bridge was good but I ain’t sure if I would last through the song till that part. I really don’t know what went in their minds while writing the chorus. The vroom vroom vroom sounds are so obnoxious and I’m surprising his even got rated this high. The verses are quite forgettable too.
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