Super Junior sub-unit L.S.S — comprised of members Leeteuk, Shindong and Siwon — have the dubious honor of the lowest-rated SJ release on this blog. In fact, last year’s Joke is one of the lowest-rated songs in general. Their music tends to blend retro with novelty for tracks that feel more like memes than enjoyable comebacks. This approach has varying levels of success, and new Japanese single Pon Pon lands somewhere in the middle.
K-pop used to be sillier in general, back when it didn’t yet have to please an ever-increasing global audience. I miss this energy, but there’s a fine between silly and obnoxious. Pon Pon largely sticks with the former, blending its new jack swing beat with an icy electro thump. This instrumental is fun and upbeat, bringing the funk in a satisfyingly old-school way. Had the guys grafted a different song on top of the production, we’d be in a much better place.
Pon Pon‘s simple chorus works well, but the chanted asides that follow echo the worst instincts of K-pop’s first generation. I could do without the affected “dibidibidib” post-chorus hook. ‘Trying to be funny’ is rarely funny, and at its worst moments Pon Pon strains for absurdity. Still, I can play this all the way through without wanting to gouge my ears out, so I’ll consider that a win when it comes to this particular sub-unit’s output!
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 7 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
The Bias List // K-Pop Reviews & Discussion 
I remember being shocked by your rating for Joke, cause imo, it wasn’t really a 2-ratings level of atrocious, but rather a 5-6-ratings level of corny/try-hard. But well, a matter of preferences I guess, though I wonder if you still think Joke deserves that 2.75 or are you gonna be a little generous and lift it to the 3s or 4s (if not above the F-grade).
But anyways, they always give off a bunch of middle-aged uncles who try to sound fun at single gatherings but end up sounding too corny or embarrassing themselves. Here, they somehow try to make novelty sound good with that electro/new jack swing production. They just need good, engaging hooks that are still as fun (I mean, Bullet Train’s Steal a Kiss made the hooks sound fun and actually worth engaging!) and they’d have a winning formula.
Rating’s the same.
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I had to go back to the “Joke” review, and see what I said about it. I said “I would have just skipped it. Listen once, move on in life.” … I guess I did just that, as I did not remember it in the least.
To put this in context, Super Junior is just about 20 years past debut. These guys are in about the sixth or so era of SuJu. Something like Debut – Peak – Mature – rolling hiatuses – post-hiatus – together-but-apart. Some are still part of SM, others with other groups, but they do still plan to come together every so often for a full album and Super Show.
I suppose the funny uncle stage is actually a choice and perhaps an inevitability.
As for this song, its on par with the SUJU-LSS album from Jan24 which had some of this light funky not too serious style. I did listen to it a few times last year, the whole album. Usually, at this point, they all release songs to have new songs for their concerts and fan events. Its about on that sort of level.
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I had about the same thought as myma, “Oh, they’ll have fun performing this one at concerts!” You can tell that’s what they’re aiming for – music that’s fun to perform. Personally, beef this up with more singing and less speaking, and I would have been sold because the production is solid. As it is, it’s nice for what they’ll use it for, but I don’t see myself listening to it much.
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what do you think of this spoiler for riize’s upcoming title track? https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdY88YbK/
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Oh wow this sounds pretty different for them. From the clip, it’s hard to tell if it’s “good” different or “bad” different, but I’m definitely curious. My worry is that it looks/sounds a bit cheesy… but again it’s hard to tell from the quality of that clip.
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with the amount of mediocre music that has been releasing lately, you should add the worst songs of each month (contrary to highlights)
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Whether you like it or not, when reviewing the music of a different culture, one should make an effort to understand its cultural specificity rather than just its connections with western culture. Both Pon Pon and Joke can’t be fully appreciated if you don’t like or don’t even know Trot, the Korean pop music before Kpop, because they very much harkens back to that, and deliberately so.
Years ago the subunit SuJu T already had a couple of huge hits that brought different genenerations together, and like SuJu LSS they also had Japanese versions of some of their songs, such as Rokkugo, because this kind of music is popular there as well. LSS could almost be called their inofficial Japanese subunit, and that’s no “joke” at all, because success in Japan still has a lot of prestige. And that SuJu are older themselves now makes it even more fitting and ironic.
Personally I love Trot, with its pentatonic scales, syncopated dance rhythms (influenced by Mambo long before Raggaeton) and over the top, campy performance style. Leeteuk and Shindong are quite the experts on it. Beyond writing some of SuJu’s songs in this style, Leeteuk conceived and hosted a Trot boy group casting show called Favorite Entertainment that was an absolute riot and spawned a short-lived group called Super Five, who released a song called Eyes On Me, a James Bond-ish parody similar to SuJu’s cult song “Spy”, which they recently performed again in their Super Show. And SM recently started a modernized trot boy group called MYRTO who are clearly targeted to older audiences. Personally I find it refreshing when Kpop preserves some of its cultural specificity rather than just trying to copy the current trends of the US charts, because like most fans I originally turned to it as an alternative and not more of the same.
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I find them very enjoyable personally. I don’t know, they always look like they are just out here having a good time with their fans, a group I am not into, but all the power to them. SuJu have their issues, but as artists, they always bring extremely good vibes and this particular subunit seems focus on that: vibes, a bit of a joking vibe, producing songs that will be fun to share with fans at fanmeetings and music shows. It makes total sense for where they are in their careers imo!
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