Album Anatomy: Is BLACKPINK’s album “Born Pink” a bop or flop?
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On Sept. 16, 2022, Korean pop girl group BLACKPINK released their 11th album, “Born Pink,” on music streaming platforms such as YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
October 30, 2022
Korean-pop (K-pop) girl group BLACKPINK released their album “Born Pink” on music streaming platforms Spotify and Apple Music on Sept. 16, 2022.
To be honest, I was excited when I heard about this album because it has a unique theme of self-love and consists of hip-hop songs and a few slow tracks as well. To understand whether each of the songs made the album a bop (an enjoyable album) or a flop, here is a review of each of them respectively.
Although this track has a catchy beat, some parts of it get annoying after a while. Moreover, it’s a little overplayed because of the YouTube shorts dance challenge in which people dance to the chorus of the song. Finally, “Pink Venom” is in a higher key compared to BLACKPINK’s other songs, which is unique, but doesn’t fit the singers’ voice range. Overall, I rate this song a seven out of ten.
I really enjoyed this song’s music video, as there are parts where BLACKPINK’s members are shown dancing in front of radiant backgrounds and shut down stores in a Korean street market alley at night. However, I did not like the instrumental, as I expected it to be more original; the instrumental is actually a sampling of the classical piece “La Campanella” by Franz Lizst and Niccolò Paganini. Aside from the sampling issue, this song had an attention-grabbing beat that made me want to keep listening to the whole track. Therefore, I rate it a nine out of 10.
This song is definitely one to hip-hop dance to, but once again, the instrumental isn’t original. It sounds like a slower version of LISA’s “Money” in a different key. Aside from that, it is a confidence-boosting song for listeners as shown by the lyrics, “You can check my stats, got everybody’s eye / And I run them laps, ’round everybody’s mind.” Because of this, I rate it a nine out of 10.
This one is not a hip-hop-type song as seen with the previous three tracks, but it’s a feel-good piece. I feel like I would listen to this song when I’m on a road trip. It sounds similar to another one of BLACKPINK’s songs called “Forever Young.” It’s good to listen to occasionally, but not all the time. Another critique I have is that it seems shorter compared to the previous three songs; I wish it was a little longer. So, I rate the song an 8.5 out of 10.
This song is ROSÉ’s (another member of BLACKPINK) solo project, so I was super excited to listen to the track. This piece allows listeners to hear the versatility of ROSÉ’s voice and I’m glad she got a chance to show off her range. The only critique I have is that the rhythm seemed a little repetitive. There didn’t seem to be much variation between the pre-chorus and chorus, which would have been a nice addition. Aside from that, I enjoyed listening to it and give it a nine out of 10.
This song is one of the slower ones of the album; it has a relaxed tempo compared to the other songs as well as a unique instrumental. Many of BLACKPINK’s songs have electronic beats and a lot of bass in the background, but this song had an acoustic feel to it. This acoustic aspect allowed each of the singers’ voices to really pop out in the music, as their voices didn’t seem masked by autotune. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that there was not much of a balance between the instrumental and singing, so I thought there was more singing than the instrumental. Therefore, I rate the song a nine out of 10.
Something I liked about this song was the rhythm. Unlike “The Happiest Girl,” the rhythm wasn’t too slow or too fast, tempo-wise. Additionally, I enjoyed the way the rapping was embedded in the song because it wasn’t taking up too much of the song and listeners are able to hear the voices of the other singers. Although these aspects were enjoyable, I felt that the singing was overpowering the beauty of the song’s instrumental and the chorus seemed a little repetitive. Besides that, I really enjoyed listening to the song and I rate it an 8.5 out of 10.
I really enjoy the background music and vocals of this song. The music starts off slow and then gradually gets faster. On the contrary, I feel this song is also overplayed similarly to “Pink Venom” because of a collaboration BLACKPINK did with the video game PUBG Mobile. In this project, BLACKPINK did an “in-game” concert in which the characters that looked like the group’s members danced to some of BLACKPINK’s songs. Other than that, it was a really nice song; I rate it an eight out of 10.
All in all, this album was very enjoyable to listen to. I believe that everyone, especially students at Foothill Technology High School (Foothill Tech), should listen to this album because in doing so they are introduced to a genre of music that is similar yet different from average popular music in America. Of course, there were some flaws within the songs, but they each had their own unique touch that allowed for listeners to delve deeper into the genre of K-pop music.
