Review

Song Review: BABYMONSTER – Sheesh

Posted on by 82 Comments

Babymonster - SheeshThe lead-up to BABYMONSTER’s Sheesh has been an experience, to say the least. Every one of its teasers highlighted the same part of the song, with the girls sheeshing at us one by one over the course of what seemed like an eternity. The original purpose of teasers is to raise excitement for a song, but this felt like inoculation against that awful chorus. Anything sounds better if you’ve heard it enough times, right?

Sheesh marks BABYMONSTER’s full-group debut, with member Ahyeon joining promotions for the first time. You already know how it sounds. Honestly, you know how any YG Entertainment girl group title track sounds before hearing it. Over the better half of this decade, the agency has found a successful template and repeated it over and over with little variation. Devoted fans seem placated by these copies of copies, giving YG no motivation to innovate the way they once did. It’s a sad state of affairs, and makes their music difficult to critique. It’s like trying to extract meaning from a fast food value meal.

With this in mind, it’s probably better to break Sheesh into pieces and decide how they compare to the quintessential “YG song template”:

Verse one: Treads water and does little to establish a unique mood. Spooky piano, for no apparent reason.
Pre-choruses: Above average! I like the stabbing percussion here. It’s a nice flourish of drama right where the song needs it.
Chorus: Sheesh! Sheesh! Bleat! Baaahhh!
Second rap verse: On the surface, this is fine. However, the lyrics are incredibly cheesy — and downright false advertising! “This is a blessing to your ears” is a laughably untrue declaration given the “sheeshes” surrounding this segment.
Bridge and climactic shift: Ah, the requisite YG tempo change. After a surprisingly dynamic bridge, this one’s particularly bad. The production is leaden and the repeated “tell a friend” lyric comes across as way campier than intended. Of course, we close out with some limp “rum pum pums.” How could we not?

I guess this breakdown puts Sheesh toward the bottom of an already-negligible selection of music. More than anything, I’m struck with the vacuousness of its lyrical conceit. Do these groups have anything else to say beyond “I’m the best, look at me, I’M THE BEST (insert sound effect)“? Doesn’t that get old?? It’s too much signifying and catch-phrasing without original ideas to back it up. To be clear, the girls of BABYMONSTER are talented and this isn’t a dig on them specifically. But at this point, YG Entertainment is creatively bankrupt and we as fans need to stop rewarding them for this.

Hooks 3
 Production 7
 Longevity 7
 Bias 5
 RATING 5.5

Grade: F

82 thoughts on “Song Review: BABYMONSTER – Sheesh”

  1. I would like to say this has potential because I’m a nice person but… No😍 just no😍😘 my ears were on the verge of falling off which is never a good sign, this is getting a rating of classic yg/10😍 or in other words a 5/10😻

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  2. Also why did the turn into pirates at the end of the song like I straight up thought I was gonna get kiddnaped for random because of that pirate esque beat drop😍❤️😜

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  3. replace the word sheesh in the hook with “ugh” and you have my reaction. couldnt make it through the whole song, scrubbed until the end for the breakdown, which wasn’t even worth it.

    what a massive bummer

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  4. its an amazing original inspiring song, 10000/10 for me

    sheesh ! yall dont like it bc you dont got them all sheeshing like BM do

    🐺💯

    real sigmas listen to sheesh

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  5. (sighs) Looks like delulu isn’t the solulu and the chorus being real is trululu

    With that being said, I only wonder what if some producer actually came with something new, something that might help BaeMon establish their sound, but YG rejected the song and forced them to make a Blackpink reject.
    Boy, the intro and pre-chorus was perfect, but they really wasted it all for this “chorus” and the outro with the unnecessary ASMRs and the classic YG chant, but it sounds like a bunch of kids trying to be badass, which is funny, given 6/7 are 18 and younger.

    Anyways, I gave this a 6 (5, 7, 6, 6) on the first listen, but it lowered to a 5.25 (3, 7, 6, 5). Damn, YG, do better.
    Now I’m off to listening to the Stuck in the Middle remix, cause that’s the only song in the album I’m interested in, since I liked the sample they teased, which is a shame when the only song I like in the album isn’t an original track (I mean, only 2/7 are new songs), but a damn remix.

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  6. What’s with the slower BPM change at the end? YGE did the same thing in Blackpink’s Pretty savage and it kinda ruins the explosive ending the songs were building to

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  7. Is not as bad as I expected, nevertheless is a blatant Blackpink copy that you would expect from, let say, Lapillus.

    If I had to choose from the 2 newest songs that use the word sheesh, I would pick LSF-Easy, no doubt

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  8. honestly, it’s tolerable… i don’t really expect anything groundbreaking from yg anymore. it’s yet again another case of good build up and AWFUL payoff with the worst offender being the switch up at the end. it’s so gimmicky and out of nowhere! i do think an explosive yg outro ala how you like that would have been the better choice and would lead to a more satisfying conclusion. but it is what it is. a clunky, sloppy, and uninteresting track that’s just like every yg hype track we’ve heard before. it’s a frankenstein of interesting sounds but it lacks the energy and spark needed to bring it to life… send it BACK to the studio!

    i was honestly hoping for a pleasant surprise. i think these girls are amazingly talented but my interest isn’t going to last long if they’re always gonna be given songs beneath their skills. yg is clearly losing their luster and i fear that would inadvertently diminish the fire within these girls. part of me is hoping this is some cruel april fools’ prank.

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  9. Teddy left yg and his producing his own ggroup.Should wait for that group.4th and 5th gen are filled to the brim with talent but lacks in music quality.

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  10. I was expecting worse, actually. But I really don’t understand what’s the point in debuting a whole new group and making them sound exactly like blackpink…

    Also, it’s so funny how badass these girls are trying to look while shouting SHEE SHEESH (it reminded me of your Smoothie review haha).

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  12. Nahhh, a 5 is way too low. It’s a good, average song, and the vocals are especially nice. It doesn’t do anything we couldn’t predict but I wouldn’t tank its score just for that.

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  14. havent heard it yet but im lowkey excited to hear it, the sheesh kinda grew on me from the teasers, doesnt change its such a terrible lyric lmao

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  15. they’re really the opposite of HYBE in terms of figuring out industry trends. this is doodoo. they are depending on Ahyeon for success so bad LOL. someone needs to finally tell YG what the actual problem is, this can’t go on any longer. these poor girls are not even getting material deserving of their talent.

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    • YG set them up at the start by making them a rehash of Blackpink and it’s to their detriment. These are talented girls but a girl crush concept (especially with most girls who are still young enough to be in secondary school) plus recycling old Blackpink songs, just does not work whatsoever

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      • Once again a very talented group of young ladies is sandbagged by their company. There was plenty of time to create quality music for them. Instead the girls are saddled with a track that’s embarrassing.Sadly they’re not the first group that has to promote music well below the group’s talent. The k-pop industry needs a reboot. Just saying.

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  17. i saw someone ACTUALLY compare this to 2NE1’s missing you.. i cannot believe the sheer delusion of this statement. like yeah it has that atmosphere but this is in no shape or form even CLOSE to the masterpiece that is missing you

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  20. as someone who didn’t hear the teasers, I laughed when I heard the chorus. I came in expecting the template but the prechorus gave me so much hope. This chorus seems very memeable and alone is gonna prevent me from listening to the song. Honestly, it’s such a shame, the video looks fantastic and the girls have the talent to really sell it at the level of a red velvet or a purple kiss. Oh well ❤️‍🩹

    I’m challenging anyone capable to remake this song, giving it a good chorus and no removing the tired outro. Heck, the rap section could be beefed up too

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  21. I for one think that showing off the worst part of the song was a genius move. Lowered my expectations so much that I was actually really happy with what we got. I shockingly didn’t mind most of it except for the last party chorus- after the ‘drop’ it just felt too noisy and convoluted. I have absolutely no idea how this will age though.

    Anyways. Poor babymonster, the definite losers of girl group debut week (in terms of how good the song is for the purposes of this blog). 

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  22. I thought the teasers prepared me for an ear grating, repetitive SHEESH, but nothing could have prepared me for this wannabe badass chant of a song. I find this (and Batter Up) amusing considering half of the group are minors singing about how cool and top notch they (think they) are.

    Hoping YG will give them better songs deserving of their talent in the future (and not another BP copy paste).

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  24. Honestly I set myself up for failure by having hope in YG, they’ve mismanaged their groups so many times but I still wanted to be dululu and hope in my heart that they wouldn’t fail Baemon but here we are again. YG always somehow manages to gather a group of talented idols,only to waste that talent. I’m honestly convinced YG wanted them to be compared to Blackpink and it makes me sick. Baemon’s members are all so talented but they’re constantly being overshadowed by the fact that they are under the same company as Blackpink, this was YG’s chance to prove the BM is trying to be BP 2.0 allegations wrong and they failed. Personally Fuck YG, I still love the girls and despite the song being repetitive I’ll still Stan them and I’ll attempt to gaslight myself into like this.

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  26. I’ve scrolled Twitter the whole day and I’ve yet to see something about this song and it already have 10 million views in just 8 hours? Yeah right. The BP reject can be seen from a planet away. You can even pick out Rosé and Jisoo’s voices with how the girls just sound exactly like them and how they did it in the demo. It feels good that other 4th gen groups are releasing actually good music so we’re not stuck having listening to this mess.

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  27. “…..we as fans need to stop rewarding them for this….”

    Congratulations…..

    I’ve been waiting for someone to say this out loud.

    Now….. will anyone listen??

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  29. Such waste of talents is really saddening. Make those girls go through all that training just to sing a copy of a copy of a copy. Sheeshh…

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  30. Every time I listen to BM I feel like I’m hate watching cause my expectations for every song are rock BOTTOM. But I genuinely want these girls to succeed 😭❤️

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    • Hook: 6 (The Sheesh is just too memorable… but annoying af and I bet I’ll remember it as a meme material)
    • Production: 3
    • Longevity: 3 (I genuinely wish my radio station around my area stop playing this song as I will just laugh out load on car or at public places)
    • Bias: 3 (Sorry but BabyMonster just keep on dropping my expectation toward them… basically YG fault but meh since it is bias score)
    • Total: 3.75 deserved

    Hi Nick, just discovered your blog recently, and I just wonder how would you differentiate between ‘Hook’ vs ‘Longevity’? These 2 factors seems positively affected, but I don’t know? Somehow I do found some songs that is extremely annoyed, but did grew on me eventually.

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  32. This is a mess up video.

    All 5th gen are stepping up. And here they are. They’re messing the girls talent.

    YG come on. You’re better than this.

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  33. The moment I heard the chorus I knew what it was going to be. It’s bad. It’s the same YGE shit every year. I feel like they can only give us a good rap but the rest is just ok. The outro for me is the worst outro I’ve ever heard. For me this song is a 3/10 and I’m being generous when I say that.

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  34. expectations for a YG title track are always so low, and yet here i am disappointed. It was all fine for YG standards until we reach the “sheesh! sheesh!” exclamations and omg it is SO bad

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  35. I can’t even hit play because BM makes me so sad ever since someone posted a video of a cover they did and I realized how talented these girls actually are and how well they can sing. Like someone said above, they have the vocal chops to be another Red Velvet or Purple Kiss, but they never will be unless they somehow get poached by an entirely different company, which would be a bible-level miracle.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDJcbH_HgjY

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  36. ok, first of all, the person who wrote this column knows nothing about music. The uniqueness of the song is what makes it great. Kpop needs a unique approach to continue being a big trend within the fans and captivate new listeners and fans. This type of criticism reminds me of the judges in those competition TV shows like American idol and America’s got talent, they always look for what’s the same all the time and it’s absolutely lame and boring because they always glorify the same singing acts that have an awful low pitch and scream the high pitch and they look at it as if it’s some inspiration and the world should sing that way and when that one or two people in the show sing somethingtl thats completelydifferent from the rest, they get looked at like weird people. Well it’s not, not all music should be the same within it’s genre, pop/kpop music is basically all the genres in one and can be mixed up is many different ways and YG did just that with Babymonster. The key word is baby monsters here, not fairies or princesses. It’s supposed to be a bit dark and unusual but still making sense and showing a good ability to show this is another side of kpop without it just being one sided like the many groups with a more similar musical context.

    Most in the comments are also tone deaf, yeah yeah to you it’s awful because you’re used to the same old kpop songs… what do yall expect? For kpop to have 500 new groups within the next 10 years and every group sounding the same? Groups that are breaking the typical kpop barrier are groups like Aespa, Nmixx, Itzy and Babymonster because they’re all giving us something unique and different from what I call just another kpop group. Sheesh is a nice song and the other tracks in the album are pretty nice as well, as someone who’s been in music for over a decade I know good or high potential music when I see it. Most current western rap isn’t it because it’s all the same.

    You know what new group I would actually day it’s a letdown despite the diversity? VCHA. Why are they a letdown? Because they sound like every other typical kpop group! They also have choreo like every other average kpop group. I’m a JYP fan because that company has the better groups in kpop but VCHA didn’t have that spark. It’s not bad, it’s just nothing new. I watched the MVs and their debut in the Twice concert but it wasn’t really something that I would say it’s new and amazing, even my non kpop fan brother enjoyed Twice more and thought VCHA was a cover group or the cast of mean girls 2.

    That’s what’s wrong with most kpop fans today, no knowledge in the art of music. It’s great so get over it, Babymonster is unique and isn’t going to be like every other group, they can sing, dance, rap and pop very well, YG is in a right direction with this after the massive impact from Blackpink. 

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    • Oh, sweetie, bless your heart for trying to school us all on what constitutes good music. But let’s get one thing straight: just because a song is “unique” doesn’t automatically make it great. And sorry to burst your bubble, but BABYMONSTER’s “uniqueness” isn’t some magical shield against criticism.

      Sure, diversity in Kpop is refreshing, but let’s not confuse being different with being good. It’s like saying a burnt pizza is unique because it’s not like all the other perfectly cooked ones. And comparing Kpop criticism to talent show judges? Really? Last time I checked, Simon Cowell wasn’t running Billboard charts.

      And let’s not even get started on your hot take about Kpop fans having no “knowledge in the art of music.” Honey, just because we don’t all have a PhD in Musicology doesn’t mean we can’t tell the difference between a bop and a flop.

      As for your critique of VCHA, maybe try taking off those rose-tinted JYP glasses for a sec. Just because a group doesn’t reinvent the wheel doesn’t mean they’re automatically trash. And if your non-Kpop-fan brother prefers Twice over VCHA, maybe it’s time to rethink your taste in music.

      So, darling, before you go off spouting your “wisdom” about the state of Kpop, maybe take a step back and realize that not everyone is going to bow down to your musical preferences. But hey, if you think BABYMONSTER is the second coming of Mozart, more power to you. Just don’t be surprised when the rest of us roll our eyes and hit skip.

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    • girl what? being unique doesn’t make a song good. O.O by nmixx is certainly a very unique song but it’s sonically rotten. enough w the mental gymnastics

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  38. Batter Up / Sheesh = terrible, uninspired BP reject tunes

    Stuck in the Middle = nothing great, but easy background track

    Like That / Dream = interesting due to girls’ talents

    If Baemon concentrated on their beautiful tones and their explosive rap/hip hop, their discography would be SOO much better. Ditch the YG Template!

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  39. The song is so awful for me and it sounds creepy like a cult music. I don’t understand why people just blindly liking it. The youtube views are insane just because of their popularity.

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  40. ok, first of all, the person who wrote this column knows nothing about music. The uniqueness of the song is what makes it great. Kpop needs a unique approach to continue being a big trend within the fans and captivate new listeners and fans. This type of criticism reminds me of the judges in those competition TV shows like American idol and America’s got talent, they always look for what’s the same all the time and it’s absolutely lame and boring because they always glorify the same singing acts that have an awful low pitch and scream the high pitch and they look at it as if it’s some inspiration and the world should sing that way and when that one or two people in the show sing somethingtl thats completelydifferent from the rest, they get looked at like weird people. Well it’s not, not all music should be the same within it’s genre, pop/kpop music is basically all the genres in one and can be mixed up is many different ways and YG did just that with Babymonster. The key word is baby monsters here, not fairies or princesses. It’s supposed to be a bit dark and unusual but still making sense and showing a good ability to show this is another side of kpop without it just being one sided like the many groups with a more similar musical context.

    Most in the comments are also tone deaf, yeah yeah to you it’s awful because you’re used to the same old kpop songs… what do yall expect? For kpop to have 500 new groups within the next 10 years and every group sounding the same? Groups that are breaking the typical kpop barrier are groups like Aespa, Nmixx, Itzy and Babymonster because they’re all giving us something unique and different from what I call just another kpop group. Sheesh is a nice song and the other tracks in the album are pretty nice as well, as someone who’s been in music for over a decade I know good or high potential music when I see it. Most current western rap isn’t it because it’s all the same.

    You know what new group I would actually day it’s a letdown despite the diversity? VCHA. Why are they a letdown? Because they sound like every other typical kpop group! They also have choreo like every other average kpop group. I’m a JYP fan because that company has the better groups in kpop but VCHA didn’t have that spark. It’s not bad, it’s just nothing new. I watched the MVs and their debut in the Twice concert but it wasn’t really something that I would say it’s new and amazing, even my non kpop fan brother enjoyed Twice more and thought VCHA was a cover group or the cast of mean girls 2.

    That’s what’s wrong with most kpop fans today, no knowledge in the art of music. It’s great so get over it, Babymonster is unique and isn’t going to be like every other group, they can sing, dance, rap and pop very well, YG is in a right direction with this after the massive impact from Blackpink. 

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    • While I respect your opinion… dont diss Nick here (if you disagree this strongly you sadly may have come to the wrong place)

      also i think there is a difference between having a “unique song” and just a flat-out empty chorus without many hooks. good songs can also be unique too-its just this song’s switchups are quite jarring in my opinion and its ok for others to think differently 🙂

      no need to drag other groups out here though lol

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  42. As someone who has been pretty content with the kpop being released this year… this one really scored a new low for me LOL

    There was so much hype around this group… their vocals are genuinely quite unique and the first verse-prechorus actually sounded pretty nice… and then the unbearable chorus hits.

    this song did them so dirty….please promote Like That instead 🙂

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