While I was certainly excited for the release of After School's latest maxi single 'First Love' due to the mere fact that it's been almost exactly a year since I've last heard of the group, I became especially curious for the release because of their advertisement of pole dancing in the music video for their headlining track "First Love". This drew my interest because even the slightest reference to pole dancing has been the reasoning for banned music videos in the past, the notable example being SISTAR's "How Dare You". But 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
When I played the headlining track "First Love" for the first time, I immediately started cringing. I feel that I'm justified when I say that the combination of instrumentals in the beginning—a stock percussion loop, cheesy Motown "get funky, get down" sample, some Kanye West-esque soul scream sample, and that wretched fake saxophone synth that K-Pop has been (questionably) obsessed with as of late—are enough to initially signal a sloppy, unimaginative tune is coming ahead. Furthermore, the initial scenes of pole dancing in the music video suggested for an onslaught of sexual choreography—which I guess wouldn't be surprising for After School.
Luckily, this dreadful amalgamation faded way to one of the most refreshingly beautiful K-Pop songs I've head 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.
While I'm still really not a fan of that awful saxophone synth performing throughout the track, 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.
Dressing Room
The mini-album transitions nicely to the next track, "Dressing Room". A moderate tempo, angsty-yet-downtrodden electronic pop song, this song perhaps unsurprisingly features much more explicit lyrics than contained in "First Love". The song essentially depicts a fantastic erotic fantasy that the woman narrator would like to have with the a male protagonist in her secret, dressing room. While these types of lyrics generally don't equate with the most creative instrumentals, this is one of the few exceptions that I know of. The music is simply awesome. The edgy, bass heavy electronics depict the dark fantasy contained within in the depth of the mind of the female. The instrumentals build in texture and complexity as the song progresses, which suggests the growing desire for the fantasy. I'm particularly fond of the falling laser synth that occurs after the second refrain, which continues this intensity momentarily before the song falls. Finally, Raina certainly makes a name for herself with her impressively convincing beltings of "I'm changing love" in the song's final section. While the setting of the song likely won't allow this song to get the highest amount of airplay, it's definitely a track to check out, and one I'll definitely return to listen again in the future.
Time's Up
The next track, "Time's Up", is the closest definition of a filler that this mini-album possesses, and is undoubtedly the weakest song on 'First Love'. There really isn't much interesting to note here as it's pretty much what you expect from an uptempo, straightforward pop tune. The only thing worth noting is the random chordally-stangant texture and tempo shift towards the end that Nana and Uee rap through. While I like immediate texture shifts as much as the next person, this seemed out of place and likely was an attempt by the producers to add something interesting this track.
Love Beat
"Love Beat" is club dance track that I've been waiting for in this mini-album. As I alluded to before, I believe that After School's genre forte falls under this style of performance, and this one definitely lives up to that standard. While most aspects of the song are readily predictable, this song far an away has the highest replay value of any song on on this mini-album. The varying sections and texture shifts meld seamlessly into one another, which not only creates a club track that isn't awkwardly patched together but it preventing the mentioned predictableness and standardness of some of the sections to never seem like they are of these qualities. Despite the general mellow tone of the song, the vocal performances of the refrain exceed the normal range I would expect from this group, which in combination with the driving background beats creates an ear worm that is hard to get out of your head.
Crying After Putting On Makeup
The last track, "Crying After Putting On Makeup" is a tune that fulfills the requirements of the typical K-Pop ballad: it starts off with a solo piano, builds in intensity throughout, the singers perform a strong climax, and ends on a solemn note. The ballad isn't bad, but it's certainly forgettable in the scheme of things. Raina and Jung Ah, the only two performers in this particular track, are as strong as can be—I've been really impressed with Raina in the album overall, and arranging decision supporting her voice with the electric guitar led her to be even more impressed with her on a musical level. Though as this album has not been overly hyper in any sense of the word, this is an appropriate ending to what ended up being one of my favorite—if not my favorite—overall releases of the year so far.
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