[Review] TNX take us on a comprehensive journey back through time to prove they can indeed “Kick It 4 Now”

While TNX has largely been absent on my radar up until now, P Nation appears to have found a sound that works for their first boy group. After debuting with the brash yet anonymous “MOVE“, they softened things up a lot for “Love Or Die” and got something a lot more listenable. Now they’ve dropped “Kick It 4 Now“, which is exactly the kind of catchy and carefree sound that others seem to have been going for.

——

Since everybody else has been throwing it back to the high-teen era, TNX have gone back a bit further towards the first generation artists of K-pop, which generally meant influence from the late-80s/early-90s of American groups. Indeed, they’ve come up with a mostly straightforward new jack swing song that’s reminiscent of other boy groups like Tony! Toni! Tone!, New Edition, and New Kids On The Block.

While some songs almost try to force feed the listener that carefree soundscape, “Kick It 4 Now” seems to achieve this naturally, as it has a bouncy swagger that keeps things rolling through the verses. The standout melody in the chorus is both refreshing and memorable, making for an easy summer anthem. It’s just a lot of fun, and I doubt the “let’s kick it for now” hook will be removing itself from my eardrums anytime soon, but I’ll try my best. The members themselves (perhaps ironically) do well to capture the freeing feeling of being able to love, and acquit themselves vocally throughout.

P Nation is being amusingly opportunistic here in taking advantage of the retro trends and combining that with the summer season to maximize popular appeal. But man I’m a sucker for the full-send of this kind of nostalgia bait, especially when it strikes melodic gold like TNX did with “Kick It 4 Now”. This deserves to be a bigger success than it probably will be, as it’s about as comprehensively enjoyable as it gets.

And by that I mean the quality of the song caused me to backtrack on the whole concept, and boy did I miss out on some great stuff. Not only did they do picture teasers (collage below) that perfectly capture the first generation K-pop boy groups, but they also did two sets of commercials for every member, for random products (1/2/3/4/5/6) and then for like summer beach stuff (1/2/3/4/5/6), and also video cuts of them performing on a music show from 1993.

10/10, no notes.