Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
I didn’t think Ailee was going to be releasing another music video after “Mind Your Own Business“, but she surprisingly came out with one for “Insane” and I’m definitely glad she did.
Predictably, I liked what I heard right off the bat from “Insane”, as it reminded me of a well-executed R&B jam from the early-00s but with upgraded production values and Ailee’s own flair added.
Granted, this is not at all what I was looking for from my rant the other day, as “Insane” is really just throwback R&B, something that Korea typically hates — I was actually thinking something more like MAMAMOO‘s “Um Oh Ah Yeh“, where it’s a shameless mainstream pop jam that’s also ramped up on steroids thanks to the performer’s reputation for talent. Yet despite another Ailee song that’s neither taking risks nor going with mainstream appeal, I at least felt “Insane” was much better constructed and executed, and that helped Ailee deliver a quality final product that left me with a degree of satisfaction with her comeback as a whole.
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These types of mid-tempo R&B tracks and/or slow jams may just be Ailee’s sweet spot, which is actually rather unfortunate given the lack of a current market for that in Korea. I’d love to be wrong on that, but that’s the way the chart trends have gone with other songs of this nature, and thus my desire for her to go for a pop jam in the future still maintains.
Either way, for right now, I’m glad Ailee was given something to promote during this comeback that she could star in, and she manages to do just that on “Insane”.
