Man, what the fuck.
Given that it’s a song about love, “Cookie” pretty clearly uses the titular cookie as a euphemism, which is not going to help Min Hee Jin, NewJeans, or HYBE/ADOR distance themselves from the current discourse regarding underage members and concepts that sexualize them. Hell, if the “cookie” wasn’t enough they even use “thirsty”, which is as blatant as it gets. Surely nobody is clueless enough to even give them plausible deniability on this, right? I know they did enough to skirt things with Red Velvet‘s “Ice Cream Cake“, but this is just blatant.
Anyway, as far as the song goes, I’m kind of surprised this is so … subdued? While I understand their vibe is more in that mode, I did think they were scaling up but have actually finished rather weakly instead. “Cookie” just kinda of meanders along as a sort of trap-pop ditty, and the instrumental does hold some intrigue, but despite being comfortably listenable it’s also mostly just … there, for the most part.