Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
GOT7 are back with “Hard Carry“, which is certainly a new direction for them, and probably a positive one moving forward.
This is a lot different sound for GOT7, which has generally been friendly and happy for the most part, a concept that hasn’t really resulted in much of anything musically despite my general enjoyment of the group. “Hard Carry” takes a more serious route for the group, and while that generally does less for idols, it fits GOT7 a lot better.
The instrumental is lively but it also feels like a sound we’ve heard many times over already. But despite the relative generic feel to it, the explosion at the chorus grabs your attention. That said, I didn’t enjoy most of the rapping and quasi-rapping/quasi-singing sections, as they just didn’t seem to gel well. However, the vocal sections, especially the pre-chorus, stood out as the star of the track. Not only did the pre-chorus provide a nice build up to the instrumental explosion of the chorus, but it also lyrically combined references to what “hard carry” actually means and mixing that in with braggadocio, and it was what I looked forward to hearing the most.
On GOT7’s previous lead single, “Fly“, I actually ended up changing my mind a bit on it because even now, whenever the song is mentioned I can easily hum along to the instrumental and sing the hook despite the flaws. Mainly though, “Fly” wasn’t a track that was immediately impactful, and it took me a bit to realize how memorable the hook was. I mention my experience with “Fly” now, because “Hard Carry” sort of gives me the opposite impression. Right now, I feel like it’s fun and energetic and I like the concept change, but over time I wonder how much anybody will remember about the instrumental and yelling “hard carry hey” over and over.
Despite that misgiving, this is what I’ve wanted to see out of GOT7 since their debut, and I hope they continue down this path. While I’m not sure if this is quite the song they’re looking for to get them to the next level, at the very least it’s an energetic dance track that’s a lot of fun.
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As far as the music video is concerned, it’s not too complicated, and seems like we’ve seen it before much like the instrumental of the song. There’s basically one dark intense set and one light set with trees.
That’s not all that important to me, though. Or, more accurately, it’s not as important as seeing GOT7 tackle aggressive choreography, which is always entertaining. It’s probably the most exciting part about this comeback and it’s why I’ve wanted them to use this concept for a while. Thankfully they followed through with the execution and it seems like this will be a lot of fun to watch on music shows or in concert.
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While I’m not sold on the song just yet, there were highlights to it that made it worthwhile, and it was entertaining regardless of my complaints. More importantly, I enjoyed the mature overtones of ‘Departure‘ and ‘Turbulence‘ lead single concepts, with the latter in particular sticking out, and I just hope they stick with this and abandon the ‘cute boyfriend kekeke’ concepts forever.
