Spooky season is fast approaching, which means a song titled “Thriller” has me thinking of one thing only. Instead of an MJ zombie dance-a-thon, this Thriller brings us the return of girl group BADVILLAIN. It’s been almost a year since we’ve heard from them on this blog, which might as well be a century when it comes to rookie groups. Thankfully, they’ve re-emerged with their strongest title track yet.
This Thriller has no chance of standing up to its classic namesake, but it doesn’t try to replicate those Halloween vibes. Instead, BADVILLAIN deliver a catchy hip-hop track with an incessant beat that pulls plenty of drama from a relatively simple arrangement. A great beat takes you a long way in K-pop — especially when you don’t get fussy with it by adding a bunch of needless stops, starts and energy shifts. Once you get my head nodding, the trick is to keep it nodding. Thriller has no problem doing this.
The song bounds along the blend of rap, sing-talk and truncated melody powering so many other modern K-pop tracks, but the phrasing fits the rhythm and rides the beat in a satisfying way. I love the layers of percussion here, especially when they’re ornamented with horror-show strings. Thriller‘s repetitive nature makes me worry about its longevity, but for now this is a very pleasant surprise.
| Hooks | 8 |
| Production | 9 |
| Longevity | 8 |
| Bias | 9 |
| RATING | 8.5 |
