I went to watch the video for ETA on YouTube and it was immediately preceded by an iPhone advertisement backed by the song’s hook. Make no mistake what HYBE is doing here. This NewJeans EP is branding at its most integrated. In fact, imagining these brief, jingle-like songs as stylish commercials may offer a more rewarding way to frame their strengths.
Pop music is obviously a business, but the best pop songs obscure that through emotion, connection and craft. Too often with these new-gen HYBE offerings, I get the strong feeling I’m being sold a product. That product may simply be a “vibe” or a nebulous idea of “cool,” but this niggling awareness tends to spawn resentment — unconscious or not. Again, this is nothing new. I remember when SM Entertainment used to plaster adds for “Everysing” on their artists’ music videos, but I kind of appreciated those obvious gestures. This new form of influence feels more sinister and less about the music itself.
I’m getting off topic, but I’ve written about a few NewJeans tracks this past week and the discourse has remained largely the same. To ETA‘s credit, the song lifts its energy and gives the group more bounce to work with. I’m a big fan of the distorted brass loop that fuels the track and wish the producers would have done more with it.
Like every song on this EP, ETA finds its strength through repetition. It takes one or two central ideas and grinds them into the ground, highlighted by an airy, aloof vocal that twists in cadence to the rhythm. I prefer ETA‘s specific ideas to those in Super Shy and Cool With You, making it my immediate favorite of the bunch. However, I still crave the sonic development an extra minute or two would have given this song. After all, dance music is at its finest when allowed to luxuriate in its own hypnotic energy.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 8 |
| RATING | 8.25 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
Definitely the best song on the album but this whole ‘song being under 2 minutes and 50 seconds’ trend is really starting to irk me. I was looking forward for Get Up or ASAP to at least have ONE bridge and a final chorus, just ONE. But all of them are just sooooo short. They couldn’t add just a smidge more? Even LE SSERAFIM’s Antifragile and Fearless albums are longer and they have 1 song less than this EP did.
Apologies for the ranting but I’ve been excited for this EP drop since mid-June and a month later I’ve learned the hard ole tale of never having your hopes too high.
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I personally am still not over a 6 song mini album being only 12 minutes 😭.
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I genuinely hate that this was filmed on an iPhone.
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womp womp
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Honestly while i do like the song, I’m kinda getting bored of the newjeans style. Its not bad per-say but its repetitive and I can only vibe for so long.
Even as study music its losing me
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I like the song a lot. The whole EP is really good. I just wish it was longer than 12 minutes.
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Oh I’m very much consciously filled with resentment at the blatant advertisement. I make a point of refusing to watch cf mv or kdrama or asian drama because I know they are aggressive with product placement.
That said I gave this a chance, but couldn’t finish it. Much prefer Super Shy, Ditto, OMG as the hook there had a more earworm quality that overpowered my reluctance on the vibe of these tracks
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I agreed. Sure go for minimalist music if you want (more power to you if you did), but make sure to make it catchy enough. This is better than Cool With You, but not on par with Super Shy or any of their earlier release (well, except probably Cookie, even ignoring the discourse on the song’s lyrics).
A bit of a side note, the video was shot fully on iPhone which makes it a bit janky at some points, but are they also sponsored by the car company of the car featured in this video lol?
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Any idea what the model of the car is? I have been trying to find out but no luck. I guess it was not sponsored. It seemed to be no branding.
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This was okay. I was immediately intrigued by the Baltimore club music sound and I’m wondering it the choreo will have some of the dance moves I’ve seen growing up. Overall, atleat I don’t feel sleepy listening to this one.
Like others said, I wish this song was longer. Hype Boy and Attention are still my favorite songs from them.
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Or in other words, Hybe should pull a Hybe and pump out a half dozen DJ extended remixes, because the stans will buy them all and we on the outside might appreciate this EP more, more or less, and then Hybe might have fabricated another Billboard #1. (Seriously, Jungkook’s “Seven” has 5 versions out ranking on in the top 10 US iTunes.)
In the meantime, I see Nick’s Janet, and I raise him another Janet. This version runs almost as long as the whole NewJeans EP.
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A miscount. 9 versions of 7 are released. (Why not 7 of 7?)
5 in the top 10
4 in the 11-20
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I’ve said it many times already, but I’m totally won over by NewJeans. I love the music videos, and the shortness of the tunes hasn’t really mattered considering the narrative qualities of the MVs. And it was clear to me that this EP in particular is meant to be listened to in its entirety, the songs moving seamlessly into each other. (Also, people seem to forget that both Hype Boy and Attention are also under 3 minutes long.)
I find it really cool that the EP itself is named after a tune that lasts only 36 seconds – in effect, it’s an outro to Cool with You. I said it before in the previous review – it’s so Hyperdub, channeling Cooly G and the ghost of a Burial beat, then becoming full-on Burial with that gorgeous outro (in form and function, if not in sound design).
For me, the tunes are wonderful, but the EP itself is even better than the sum of its parts.
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For me, I am neither here nor there with NewJeans, merely recognizing them as a popular entity that is not for me.
I wonder if one strings together all the videos made for the EP, do they connect well with all the story line and lore and such into one seamless line as you say the audio does. I am sure there is some fan subreddit who is pondering this right now, and has already done it.
As a child of the 80’s, it calls to mind INXS “Need you tonight” – “Mediate” combo which was the usual MTV double play, in pretty high rotation too. The latter video of course echoes Bob Dylan “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.
‘https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiVbq6ZnNc4
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I’m not sure, but isn’t the dude in ETA the same one who is in the Attention MV? Without even really thinking about it, I kind of assumed this story picks up where Attention left off.
Other than that, it seems like some of the storylines (e.g. Ditto, OMG) are self-contained. I love the narrative in Ditto in particular, it’s so mysterious and enchanting.
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OMG, totally not the same person! LOL. Okay, not connect to Attention at all! (I was watching it on my small Google phone, but now I’m watching it on a desktop.)
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That repetitive one note brass riff is annoying as hell. The Super Shy synth riff reigns supreme.
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I’m sold on NewJeans (the sound, I’m too far out of traditional fandom these days to be sold on the lore / concept / members). Something about the looping, airy melodies really hits with me, and I find their songs addictive in an enjoyable way. I’m really glad all the songs released for this EP are at such a brisk tempo, which brings this style of music from “meh” to “pop cocaine”.
The choruses and melodies of my favorite NewJeans songs (Attention, Ditto, rapidly Super Shy) do have that self-contained, circular quality that I associate with Brave Brothers productions, without the song-length dynamic shifts. This is also present in some StayC songs (Poppy comes to mind, which I LOVE). Just some musing on what about this works for me.
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That Brave Brothers comparison is super interesting and I agree with you, though his “song-length dynamic shifts” is exactly what I love about his productions, so this probably explains why I’m not vibing with NJ the same way I would with classic Brave Sound.
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“Pop music is obviously a business, but the best pop songs obscure that through emotion, connection and craft. Too often with these new-gen HYBE offerings, I get the strong feeling I’m being sold a product. That product may simply be a “vibe” or a nebulous idea of “cool,” but this niggling awareness tends to spawn resentment — unconscious or not”…The Bias list
I started feeling this way about BTS two years ago to the point I didn’t want to see anything BTS related in fear that they were going to try to sell me something.
I really just want to listen to the music🤨.
I don’t think any of the NewJeans songs are that great. I don’t get the hype and that’s ok…obviously I’m not their target audience.
Anyway, 5/10
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#FireMinHeeJin
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can’t listen to this for longer than a minute, absolutely grating. the songs are boring, the girls can barely sing and lack charm, i don’t get it.
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It’s the best one of the album. It has a great club vibe, but dang it is so short.
If you want to have a ‘dance-club’ type of album, make it LONGER. Also, same other comments: this is a definite soloist material and not a group ones.
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The song I’ve liked the least from their discography so far, and I thought that would be Super Shy, but hey, that’s how comebacks are, personally this EP has disappointed me.
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When I first listened to the song a few time this morning, I thought it was the best one on the EP. Tonight, I can’t even remember what it sounded like. It’s just become part of the blur of background music this EP has become. The MVs are great, but the songs have all become secondary to the art house video shtick. If a song can’t stand on its own, it doesn’t win a place on my playlist, and sadly that’s how this entire EP had played out for me so far. It very much gives me “let’s recreate/modernize 4 Walls or Airplane with a Y2K twist” (or similar f(x) songs) and missing the mark. Those later f(x) and SHINee visuals and their experimental B-side choreography styles are there, but they are playing soundtrack to the videos and that’s about it.
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the main problem with this whole ep is the complete lack of development these songs have, if hybe and min heejin think throwing a chorus and two verses at us (just a singular chorus in get up’s case) it’s some quirky stylistic choice, they’re wrong, they have such GOOD AHH ideas for their songs and they’re just leaving them at some mild and lame 2-something minutes? just saying that two Taylor Swift or Mariah Carey songs can have the same if not more duration than this whole album it’s so frustrating
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Well, I can say the advertisement worked because I saw the iPhone ad in front of another video, and immediately went to watch ETA after that was done. The brass sounds in the chorus got my attention.
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Every time I click a NewJeans video now, the iPhone ad will show up.
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THANK YOU. I literally have taken to calling the recent NJ releases ‘jingles’ because it feels to me like they’re either shilling for advertisers or selling some version of themselves. Buy into the NJ hype!
I found the music video very funny as it is so weird tonally (why do they alternate between looking delighted and then looking awkward? It’s almost like they can’t actually express the lyrics convincingly because they’re too inexperienced). Why are they dressed as gas station attendants at one point? When the 2 least interesting members DRESS UP AS POLICE, I started laughing till I cried. NJ is known for ripping off black music styles (especially Pink Pantheress) and having a very racist fandom… And MHJ thinks it’s cool to have them dressing up as police?!
Not to mention, their friend looks noticeably older than them and never interacts with them (so not really their friend) and the ending of the MV makes it seem like she committed suicide?
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