Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Over time, I’ve come to embrace the concept of SuperM. Sure, it’s cynical and inorganic, but it’s unabashedly so and in a way it kinda represents K-pop well because of it. Their “Jopping” debut also grew on me, not so much because I ended up actually enjoying it so much as it at least delivered entertainment through some sort of meme-able content.
As such, I was looking forward to “100” and what they had in store next, for entertainment value if nothing else. In some ways it lives up to the hype, but overall it was a rather disappointing follow-up.
When they debuted, I expected SuperM to deliver epics like NCT 127’s “Highway To Heaven”, but felt okay with the return of silly fun K-pop with “Jopping”. Unfortunately, most of the bombast and quirkiness of “100” came in the form of the visuals instead of the song. It was a fun watch, but otherwise it felt dead on arrival.
The chorus lacks the anything close to what “Jopping” offered, at least in terms of things to latch onto, as repeating “we go 100” over and over wasn’t anywhere near as charismatic or funny. The members do their best with the material given, but they always seem to delivering more entertainment visually than there is musical substance to work with. For something that seems to want to lean into the showmanship of K-pop, the song certainly doesn’t show a whole lot off interest in cooperating with the concept and the enthusiasm of the members.
There are flashes of the talent this supergroup has, particularly in the bridge carried by Taemin and Baekhyun, but the highlights are few and far between.
“100” is one of those tracks that isn’t terrible in a vacuum, it’s just that it would go completely anonymous if anybody but SuperM released it. Put aside the music video, and it’s just rather average and forgettable, probably the worst thing a pop release can be.
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TheBiasList holds a view of “100” on the opposite end of the spectrum, feeling it did bring the fun and ridiculousness that we expected.
