I had the pleasure of attending Jeon Somi’s meet and greet at KCON LA this past weekend and was quite taken with her abundant charisma. This seed of interest was sown with last year’s stellar dance single Fast Forward — a song that still gets me pumped to this day. But with that said, love for an artist’s star power doesn’t always transfer to the music itself. Somi’s had a mixed bag of title tracks so far, and new single Ice Cream further complicates things.
With only one comeback a year, it’s vital to knock things out of the park each and every time. I hoped her team would further steer her toward club queen territory, as there are moments where her stage manner actually reminds me of Madonna (not something I would say about just anyone!). Instead, they’ve pulled her right back to the novelty of her debut single. Ice Cream is far more Meghan Trainor than Madonna, and that’s a massive gap.
To my mind, the past few weeks have been very short on summer-themed K-pop highlights, so there’s definitely a place in the market for a cute, cheeky pop track that reminds you of hot days on the beach with dripping ice cream cones. The irritating toot toot circus brass of this song doesn’t accomplish that. The producers should have leaned into the tropical synths of the pre-chorus instead, but even with a different sound palette Ice Cream would be too inane to stick. Somi deserves a stronger vision for her artistic growth. I love her. I hate this.
| Hooks | 4 |
| Production | 5 |
| Longevity | 5 |
| Bias | 4 |
| RATING | 4.5 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
This is literally giving garbage, and that’s where this should have been kept❤️
1/10😍❤️‼️
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cmon nick, its not really that bad to warrant a 4.5
tbh the song was kinda giving momoland which is neither a compliment or an insult
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i totally see it
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It’s not that bad to warrant a 4.5 😭
The verses are nice, the chorus could use a bigger bite, and maybe the production could do much better, maybe with more percussion and some sweet synths here and there. Idk, I’m not a producer (the only producing I do is just play random keys in GarageBand and call it a day)
Well, I’ll give it a 6.75 (7, 7, 7, 6). Or maybe a 6.5 with longevity a point down cause I don’t think I’d wanna listen to it again, it’s plain forgettable tbh.
And, as random trivia no one wants to hear, we now have Ice Cream joining Joke and My Idol as the Top 3 WSOTY (Worst SOTY, abbreviation credit goes to Eiji). Man, August is not having a good start (and I will cry if Moonbyul or Young Posse or whoever comes back on my birthday fail me!)
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Eh, nvm, it’s in the 6.75 to 7 (all 7) range for me
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I have faith in moonbyul
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I heard this song once, and thought: “This is gonna be a big hit.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sSIE-o2V9g
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not that great, but not bad enough to warrant a 4.5 tho…
7.5/10 for me
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I turned it off after the first chorus and came here. I’ll give her that I haven’t heard that kind of sound in a while but it really wasn’t pleasant. I still think somi is good personality and a star but this isn’t a good conduit for her talent
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Finally got through it, why did we have to hear “if it’s gets any hotter, I’ll be melting like butter” six times? It’s not interesting or creative at all. There’s repetition that feels like effective song writing and repetition that feels like lazy song writing. Outro was lame. The horns are annoying but bareable. Somi didn’t deliver the song badly but that doesn’t mean much when she has so little to do. Birthday was better than this
on a positive note, I like the choreography…. 5/10
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the best
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I don’t think its 4.5 bad, but it isn’t good. I’d give it a flat 7. Bias score brings it up a tick as darling daughter likes Somi.
Odd production choices. The horn sample timbres are the most obvious. Obnoxious, and not in a good way.
The part of the production that bothers me is the chorus “if it gets any hotter, we’ll be melting the butter”. Now, Jeon Somi is American, she has an American accent. But here, the line gets contorted two ways – 1) to sound more like how the words sound coming from a native Korean sounds 2) to sound like the vowels rhyme. They do not rhyme, in either accent. So, if this were me, I would just skipping trying and dig fully into the lack of rhyme. Maybe dig into the consonants instead – stress the double tt with aspirated t’s. haht’tah buht’tuh. Maybe pronounce both tt’s with a sharp glottal stop and then twist and hang on the second vowels. hah’ uhhhhh … buh’ uhhhhh Why not both?
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Adding: Jeon Somi ladens every line with vocal fry. Hanging onto a hah’uhhhhhhh buh’uhhhhhhhhh with her vocal fry at the end pulled out to extremes like taffy would suit her naturally.
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Not that it matters remotely, but she’s actually Canadian, not American.
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Ok so the 4.5 put me of a little bit lol, still yeah it’s giving garbage but pronounce it in french.
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Honestly this quite shocking. It’s actually hard for a kpop song to be ‘bad’, like the mixing, the production, the melodies, sound so amateurism you would think this was made for 5 dollars from the nuguest company in existence. A literally child can produce something more polished out of their iPad (fun fact, they have!)
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I actually don’t think it’s that serious.
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I like Birthday a lot and generally frequently enjoy songs that you gave low ratings, but this just felt like an assortment of random noise thrown into a box and rattled around. Agreed that Somi deserves way better than this.
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Next to garbage,people have high expectations from Somi,this just isn’t even in the lowest expectation.people saying they like this are just die hard fans that’ll accept anything from their idol.
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The pre-chorus is amazing (very reminiscent of What You Waiting For), but I’m pretty cool on the rest of the song. It might be a grower.
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I think Somi should stick to releasing gay anthems instead of this Meghan Trainor mess. The horn doesn’t bother me as much as it should, maybe my kpop brain is just used to sounds like it. What actually bugs me is that this is her annual release. Did the people in her company actually listen to this and think, “This is the song for this year”? Giving her one song each year you’d think they’re taking all the time to use their resources to make a great song but I guess not. They don’t even have an active artist making music, what is her label even doing
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This is her pre-release, she’s releasing 2 title tracks after this.
And isn’t this exactly the kind of music they blast at gay clubs?
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Nah, I’d say songs like I’m Ready (Chungha), Super Lady ((G)I-DLE), TGIF (XG), Colours (Solar) are more suitable for the gay club-esque sounds (basically songs with a bass-like beat/bass-drop-ish beat). Ice Cream here sounds like it’d be used in some festival.
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thank you for saying this, I feel like they exposed that they’ve never been to a gay club
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Yikes.
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It
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My first thought was what in the walmart Meghan Trainor is this?!
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This is DoorDash commercial music
I was given hope by the comparison to Birthday actually. I like Birthday! It’s cute and fun! This is just annoying. I mean I wouldn’t give it the exceedingly rare 4.5 rating, but it is pretty awful.
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Her vocal delivery (and maybe the horns) in this song kind of reminds me of Wings by Little Mix…. A song like that could be great for her… sigh.
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I don’t know if it’s TBL or partially Somi herself, but there really seems to be no planned career trajectory. It seems like it’s just random songs to see what works (and they often don’t). I’m also still not entirely sure how they managed to sample Katy Perry on Fast Forward and not get sued to oblivion without a belated add to the credits. Hopefully her album/EP actually comes to fruition with this just being a prerelease. Somehow Somi manages to redeem herself from the absolute garbage that gets released with a stellar song to reset the conversation. But if that doesn’t happen, I’m a bit concerned whatever momentum she has as a soloist will die here without a quality follow up single considering how long her breaks tend to be. Barely releasing over a dozen songs in, what, over 5 years or so now (?) is pretty criminal for her potential as a soloist.
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I know I’m in the minority but I love this one. The melodies are very Meghan Trainor, and I embrace that; the production is cool and the chorus is solid. it’s refreshing to hear a song that is more melody based rather than posturing rap choruses saying all essentially the same thing in a boring way.
I couldn’t get it out of my head after first listen. I wouldn’t give it a 9, but for sure a full 8.
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She’s gorgeous and her performing/timbre keep getting better and better. Hope the songs get better too
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