After School has gotten away with murder—and by murder, I mean high levels of sexuality—in their choreography before, so I'm anticipating the results (if any) by the Korean authorities at bay in the coming days. But in the meantime of doing research into this, I'll likely be listening to this mini-album on repeat for an extended period of time, as this unexpectedly ended up being one of the most polished, tasteful, and listenable releases I've heard this year in K-Pop.
"First Love" is a combination of a stock percussion loop, a cheesy Motown "get funky, get down" sample, some Kanye West-esque soul scream sample, and a fake synthesized saxophone that K-Pop has been (questionably) obsessed with as of late. Luckily, this amalgamation faded way to one of the most refreshingly beautiful K-Pop songs I've heard in recent months. A moderate R&B tempo song about first love, the performers convincingly express the solemn sorrow of realized nostalgia and unfulfilled future potential. While not the most virtuosic vocal performance, the sensitivity the singers take toward the song setting lends itself to being song to be one of the more sentimentally enjoyable tracks I've heard in a while. This is not only refreshing as showcases the strong flexibility of After School—who I've never really associated positive vocal performances or performing non-dance tracks well in the past—but it adds a step back from the onslaught of upbeat tunes that headlining tracks typical tend to be in K-Pop.
For the most part the arrangement is tasteful. Particularly referencing the sampling, the inclusion of those Kanye West-esque samples and disc scratching in the breaks provides enough of a interesting contrast to the overall sonicscape to keep the song from being overly redundant. Additionally, referencing back to the pole dancing, the choreography of this music video, while really quite sexual, doesn't seem overboard in any respect. When one takes away the multiple negative connotations from the act of pole dancing, it can be a rather beautiful art form—and it showed in this instance.
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