Stray Kids are going all out with the promotional cycle of their first full length album and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s one of the years stronger projects, full of strong, genre bending material that really helps showcase the groups different sides. God’s Menu has grown on me ever so slightly since release and Blueprint was the perfect summer b-side turned single. However, while I enjoy the majority of the tracks off ‘Go Live’ , Easy was one of those songs that just didn’t connect with me.
Most of my views towards Easy stem from my own personal musical biases than any fault of the songs itself. I just cannot vibe with the heavy autotune and trap production that’s slathered all over the tracks soundscape. The boys try as hard as they can with the material they are given but it just comes off as uninspiring to me. In the context of the album, I viewed it as nothing more than pleasant album filler. And a music video hasn’t really changed that. For me personally, the instrumental just comes across as obnoxious. There isn’t really much momentum present and skittering trap beats don’t really help much melodically. It would fit perfectly in with the current hot 100 but thats not really what I’m looking for within a Kpop context.
But while there are many things that I don’t enjoy about Easy, there are a few things that help slightly elevate it over the usual autotuned trap fest. For what it’s worth, I believe Stray Kids have the strongest idol group rap line in the industry and without their skills a song like Easy would have come off as just another cheap throwaway single. The boys imbue the track with so much charm and charisma that it’s hard not to appreciate it to some degree. The same could be said about the hook, which while delivered in the lethargic vocal tone of so many other mumble rap tracks, feels oddly hypnotic. Do I think Easy should have gotten the single treatment? No. But I wouldn’t mind if it came around in shuffle.
Still feel like it was a missed opportunity to not give Haven and Phobia mv’s though.
Verses: 7
Chorus: 7
Production: 7
Performance: 8
Final Rating: 7.25 / 10
KBopped 