Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
SNUPER, a group whose debut I didn’t even bother to cover, are back with Sweetune and “Platonic Love” to serve us modern A-ha‘s “Take On Me” realness.
Throwing back to the 80s can be hit or miss, but SNUPER wholly committed to the concept and made it their own. The instrumental by Sweetune is an obvious soundalike with A-ha’s “Take On Me” synth sound, and they intelligently let it dominate the verses. If “Platonic Love” had a truly addictive hook like “Roly Poly” from T-ara, this also could’ve been a representative song with adequate exposure. Even just as it is, the hook is still plenty catchy with its repetitive stop-and-go tonal shifts.
My main issue is that the rap verses, especially the second one that’s sort of used as a bridge, doesn’t find a fit with the general tone of the song, and everybody probably could’ve done without hearing it. That minor quibble aside (even “Roly Poly” had this), the replayability is off the charts just for the instrumental alone, and the way the song was solidly constructed certainly didn’t hurt matters.
SNUPER’s “Platonic Love” falls short of achieving legendary status like T-ara’s “Roly Poly”, but on the strength of this release they surely deserve whatever fans they manage to wring out of this. Thanks to the commitment to the throwback concept (complete with appropriately cheesy music video) and the execution of the group, “Platonic Love” effectively captured the feel of the era and genre it was meant to represent, and also managed to make it fit into a modern context.
Well done.
