Eunji’s “The Spring” is aggressively safe and basic because people will love it

Eunji of A Pink has basically everything you want in an idol, so there’s not a lot to complain about in terms of her viability as a celebrity. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean everything she touches is gold, as her solo music readily proves.

“Cherry Blossom Ending” gets a lot of shit around these parts, and while Busker Busker‘s spring classic is not necessarily my cup of tea, I can understand the appeal. It’s a nice, pleasant song to listen to that feels like the warm glow of spring and has a melodic chorus that’s easy to sway along to.

“The Spring” hits on elements that give “Cherry Blossom Ending” that spring feeling, but strips it of basically all the interesting aspects, then adds a grating accordion that plays in the background of most of the song to ruin any chance of it being the happy-go-lucky listen of the season. There’s hardly any recognizable melody for the chorus — just a tinge of percussion and that damn accordion’s volume increasing — and the instrumental as a whole just kinda flat-lines along until the end.

I just can’t get into Eunji’s solo releases so far. There’s nothing wrong with her voice, but everything about her songs have basically reveled in their mediocrity. While folk pop isn’t generally my thing, “The Spring” is notable in that it’s just so aggressively nondescript, and it’s probably setup that way knowing people are gonna love that about it.

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