OURBIRTHDAY make their official debut today under JYP subsidiary INNIT Entertainment. This follows a truly diabolical pre-release that dampened my hopes for their eventual sound. Thankfully, Squeezy is a small step up. The song largely jettisons the annoying sing-chant approach of Hungry for a funkier, old-school approach.
This doesn’t mean that Squeezy is any huge artistic achievement. It relies heavily on novelty, especially during its nursery-rhyme chorus. Something about a bunch of K-pop girls chanting “Squeezy, easy, yeah, squeezy, yeah, kick that” just doesn’t make for a particularly engaging centerpiece, but the rest of the track has a fun, lighthearted funk sound that reminds me of early Seventeen. A chorus built on vocal melody would really make the difference here, adding weight to an otherwise flimsy approach. Alas, vocal melodies are hard to come by these days so we must simply be relieved that Squeezy‘s hook isn’t too annoying.
Instead of dwelling too much on the bad, I’ll focus on Squeezy‘s limber bassline, which does much of the heavy lifting during the verses. This sonic throughline, along with stabs of organ, forges a retro breakbeat that deserves a better song. Hopefully, OURBIRTHDAY will find that hit in the near future. For now, this feels like potential unfulfilled.
| Hooks | 7 |
| Production | 8 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 7 |
| RATING | 7.5 |
Grade: C
A step up from Hungry even if its silly energy grew on me a little, but eh, could do better with better hooks.
7.75 (7, 9, 8, 7) for me.
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Powerful funk rap production but zero personality vocals sadly
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the mv pretty much sums up their image which is aggressively for tweens. i am not a preteen but i do think there is a need for music for them and as far as songs made for that market goes you can do a hell of a lot worse and at least it didn’t give me a headache like hungry did.
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Well the music really does scream youthful specifically pre-teen vibe. The song relied too much on the hook “squeezy, easy, yeah, squeezy, yeah” that I did not remember anything happening during the song verses. Sure it is better than Hungry, but that’s such a low bar to cross. I can’t speak for others, but the italian CHEF is the music video MVP for me rather than the idol group members. He really stole my attention and gave personality to the MV.
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The intro sound so promising but it just building to somewhere that I did not like. Production would be a 9 to me, so I’m giving 7.75 (7,9,8,7) for it.
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this cruelly lack of any identity for the group. you but they have time to develop that now hopefully for them.
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