George wants you to know he’s on a “Boat” with wonderful MV & wonderfully simple song

Every once in a while my 2017 commitment to trying to listen to as much Korean music as possible actually pays dividends. From time to time you may see me whining on social media about how terrible so much lesser known Korean music is, and those are the moments where I just want to stop. However, when I find things like George‘s “Boat“, it makes everything so much better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f_VdgewnTo

Obviously the star of “Boat” is the music video, especially if you relate the hook “I’m on a boat” with the parody of the extraness of hip-hop in Lonely Island‘s “I’m On A Boat“. In that way, the music video for “Boat” serves much the same purpose, except for Korea. So much of hip-hop in the country is focused on proving who has the most swag, and here’s a bunch of dudes looking nerdy as hell on a rundown boat just fishing and chilling and shit. The funny thing? It’s a ton more entertaining than other artists trying their hardest.

Still, I wouldn’t care enough to dedicate a review if the song wasn’t surprisingly great as well. Talk about a shock, but “Boat” explodes at you with its addictive hook from the start and then reels you in with a chill-out beat and piano combo that makes it hard not to nod your head along with the song. With such a bare bones music video and track, it only makes sense that George’s inspiration for writing this is contemplating leaving the city bullshit behind, “I want to go far away. Can I leave behind the life that I’ve been enduring and just leave? Can I live a different life that may be far from the city, a life that I can live just drifting along?” A question all of us city dwellers ask ourselves at some point, probably.

“Boat” is a bit of throwback R&B that’s admittedly simple as hell, but on the strength of his smooth vocal and an attractively basic instrumental, it all just works. Honestly figured eventually I’d get tired of it if I didn’t watch the music video, but I always end up listening through when it comes up on the playlist. Just one of those songs.