Ahh, Dal Shabet. You come along randomly, you get us excited momentarily, you're here, you leave, and your name never gets brought up again. This mini-album, 'Be Ambitious', however, seems to be an attempt to give the K-Pop consumers something a bit memorable by presenting us with what is arguably their most sexually suggestive releases to date. Sex sells, right? So it should be memorable, right? Unfortunately, Dal Shabet's attempt at shocking-and-awing K-Pop in this manner, while still retaining their signature cute charm, ended up being a massively confusing mess of a release, and ultimately is one of the more disappointing releases that K-Pop has seen this year.
Be Ambitious
When I first heard "Be Ambitious" I had to take a step away from my computer. I never held Dal Shabet in the highest regards when it came to musicality, but this song seemed to set a new low for them. Confused and messy on a bewildering degree, this song wasn't even remotely catchy in the slightest. After staring at my screen for some time, I decided getting some air would do me good, and prevent me from ripping apart this song.
After getting said air, I'm not quite as dumbfounded as I was on my original listen through. But that doesn't necessarily mean I have a newfound appreciation for "Be Ambitious". Far from it: this is without a doubt the weakest title songs I've heard from Dal Shabet, which is ultimately saying something. I will give them some credit though: their song's chorus can be catchy to the right person, namely someone who absolutely loves what Dal Shabet has done in the past. So they accomplished something positive. But this is really as far as I'll go with credit. Overall, this song is trying to simply do too much. From a purely instrumental standpoint, this song is a muddled juxtaposition of a dance track and a straight-ahead bubblegum song, with feeble attempts of the performers trying to be seductive. These styles are glued together by a poorly mixed production effort; the breaks seem forced and add no musical progression to this rather stagnant piece.
The lyrics are the main perpetrator of the attempted seductive nature of the piece, seemingly written by a sexually frustrated sixth grader, bluntly depict the woman forcing the men to treat them as a sexualized object. This is demonstrated by such deep prose as: "Look at my legs, I wore a short skirt, look like you're interested". While I don't necessarily have a problem with trying to be seductive and doing so in such a childish manner—actually yes I do, but here is not the proper place to beat this horse—this just fails miserably due to Dal Shabet's hesitancy to explore anything outside of their signature bouncy bubblegum aegyo musical style. You want your man to be ambitious and look at your legs? Fine. But perhaps the reason they're treating you in such an "unfavorable" manner is because of your inherent childishness. This song, simply put, is just a straight up disaster.
Summer Break
The next track, "Summer Break", is the requisite attempt at making an upbeat summer track. While ultimately a forgettable track, this tracking is a far superior attempt at musically channeling the essence of what the lyrics are attempting to portray than what occurred in "Be Ambitious". Despite the chorus sounding like a recycled Dal Shabet song—I can't help but wanting to compare "Summer Break" to "Mr. Bang Bang" but I'm sure many will accuse this of being a stretch—the combo Top 40 dance track and West Coast rhythm guitar rhythm (kind of?) meshes well with the lyrical expression of the excitement of summer break and all its glory.
Hey Mr. Chu
"Hey Mr. Chu" is probably the most listenable song on the mini-album on first listen, but it ultimately suffers the perils of stagnant repetition. A moderately driving electro dance track, the chorus is actually quite catchy—something I could easily find myself whistling on an off day. But even with this catchiness, this song is just flat out boring. While I understand that it's hard to make this style of music to be interesting because of its inherent repetitious nature, the producers' lack of any creativity in giving the song any sense of growth or tension just screams out laziness and perhaps general incompleteness on their part. Okay, that was harsh, but they're really dumbing down this music to something not even chewable. Heck, not even the random requisite rap insert could help break things up—not that it usually does.
Let It Go
Do I even have to say anything about the next track "Let It Go"? It hurts to try to come up with something. Simply put, if you enjoy Dal Shabet's music, you'll probably enjoy this because it sounds like every other filler song they've ever done. If you're upset that I'm not saying more about this track, then I don't even.
Maybe
The last track, "Maybe", is the requisite ballad track of the mini-album. While this is actually quite an upsetting song about the pains of expressing love and the questionable nature of continuing a relationship (at least from what I understand), the song fails to express this emotion outside of a lyrical context. Though the attempt is obviously made: after a lackluster beginning, the performers becomes more comfortable in setting a somewhat complex, though ultimately melancholy, soundscape. Unfortunately, none of the performers are truly talented enough to express a convincing sense—or even a faked sense, for that matter—of what the lyrics are attempting to present. The instrumental backing doesn't help either, but this should be expected at this point. While I'm sure some will be touched by this song somehow, but it's ultimately a depressing, yet a very fitting, end to this mini-album. And it couldn't come soon enough.
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