Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Three weeks ago (I’m behind, like I said), YENA released her latest single, “Catch Catch“, which is also the latest venture in her shameless quest to capture the attention of J-pop and nostalgic second-generation K-pop hags into her domain.
Well, it’s fucking working.
Like a lot of second-gen songs, “Catch Catch” revolves around a repetitive hook in the chorus and a lot of bouncy, unironic fun energy that led many K-pop fans to find it in the first place. I know there’s a lot of K-pop discourse nowadays that says K-pop has always just been an imitation of Western music, but while the core influences are obviously and undeniably taken from there, it’s releases in this vein that quite frankly you could simply never hear in the West and what gave K-pop a lot of its unique appeal, IMO.
Now if comparing this to the second-gen standouts it draws from, then yeah, the melodies aren’t quite up to like the best of T-ara, f(x), Brown Eyed Girls, and others, but that might not be a standard met again anyway, and I think the unapologetic nonstop electro-pop energy here is more than enough. Part of the reason this is late is that I hesitated while wondering whether I liked it just because so much of the branding and marketing went basically my demo directly, but every time I’ve heard this come up it buried itself deeper as something addicting. It’s the kind of fun I’ve been wanting, basically, and it now stands out more than it ever did.
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YENA’s complete lean into J-pop and K-pop retro vibes almost literally couldn’t be better timed, and it has been quite a revelation for her even up till before this point. But “Catch Catch” is perhaps her most complete effort yet, as while I’ve liked her solo music before, this really feels like a full-court press now, because it’s not only the music, it’s flooding the zone with her entire image, choreo, and promotions. They are getting it done.
Some of the first idols she welcomed in to do the dance challenges for “Catch Catch”? T-ara’s Qri and Eunjung.
No hiding it, there’s a “Roly Poly” tribute in the music video, and the promos were bascially just sending out indicators like a bat signal for hags.
“Roly Poly” and “I Go Crazy Because Of You” directly even.
She even got Nine Muses’ Kyungri from fucking somewhere, and After School’s Kahi with “Bang!” and all.
For the J-pop stuff, here’s fucking Haruka Sakuraba from CUTIE STREET?!
“But IATFB, why rush this post out now? It’s been three weeks, it could’ve waited until your next Highlight post! You didn’t even do it for T-ara!”
That’s true, but she recently did baseball-themed posts, so I thought she deserved my love and gratitude ASAP.
Hot!
Seriously though, you gotta give her, the creative director (if it’s not just her), and her company credit for all this, as the synergy in her solo direction feels about ideal right now.
