Release Date: July 21, 2023
Track Listing
- New Jeans
- Super Shy
- ETA
- Cool With You
- Get Up
- ASAP
Review
HYBE/ADOR’s NewJeans impacted the K-Pop world when they debuted with Attention and their first EP New Jeans, last year. They continued the momentum from their debut into 2023 with their first single, OMG featuring the title track and the digital single Ditto.
NewJeans reached another milestone this year, releasing their first promotional single, Zero with Coca-Cola. It came in two flavours, the original version and the lesser remix version.
So when the news of their second EP was announced in May, many anticipated more of the goodness from NewJeans after building up so much goodwill with their music. Now that the entire EP has dropped, does it live up to the high expectations of listeners, or do they suffer the sophomore slump that many artists before them have experienced?
The teaser to this album was Super Shy; I discussed it in-depth in my review, so check that out if you want to read my expanded thoughts. The TLDR version is I preferred Super Shy over New Jeans.
The next song to be let loose upon the world was Cool With You, a track that goes much deeper into the Garage sub-genre of House music. Cool With You has a heavier mood than the spirited songs before it, making it stand out immediately. The entire groove of the track works perfectly with the tone of the lyrics, in my opinion.
Get Up is the song at the end of the side b video for Cool With You, and I was looking forward to hearing the track in its entirety. Colour me disappointed when I saw that it’s only 36 seconds long. It only gets started before cutting off. If that isn’t a cock tease of a track, I don’t know what is. Such a wasted opportunity on what could have been a sweet slow jam.
ETA is the final track to get a release, dropping on the same day as the EP. This is the first NewJeans song that I am not feeling immediately. The instrumental doesn’t have as much variety as their other songs and feels like a two and half minute loop with annoying horn stabs. Maybe it will grow on me eventually.
The only positive takeaways from this song are from its video.
- Storyline continuity from Hype Boy. My assumption is vehicular homicide happened.
- This is an Apple ad. Buy an iPhone 14 Pro, and you can catch your friend’s cheating boyfriend in the act and shoot a music video too.
- Officer Minji can pull me over anytime.
The ending song on Get Up is ASAP. No, this is not a STAYC cover. It’s a cute but minimal pop song with lots of stuttering effects, bringing a calming end to the EP.
Now that we have reached the end does Get Up meet its lofty expectations? I would say yes but with a catch. The issue with this album is not the content; despite my minor complaints, it’s all the quality expected of NewJeans.
It’s the length of the content that is bothersome. These songs are short. And in the case of Get Up, its length is so egregious it makes one get blue balls from being denied a great song. However, that is another minor thing that most listeners will gloss over since NewJeans packs in a lot in the limited time given for their songs.
As I said, the quality of the content is top-notch. I only wish it didn’t go by so fast.
