I have mixed feelings on this album.
Woman the title track is actually my least favorite song on the album. It's too formulaic and feels like it is literally checking all these boxes for a k-pop uptempo about ~female empowerment~. It's fun to listen to but it's similar to Hurricane Venus in that another singer could be on the record. While I'm more interested in songs that feel like BoA and only BoA could sing them (Only One, Kiss My Lips, and Irreversible are examples of this).
As for the video and performances, I enjoy the choreo but the scenes lifted from Formation are terrible. There's such a level of tone deaf cultural dissonance, to have the plantation scenes of Formation...but with BoA and white women. I also wish BoA would take her time or break free of whatever music videos. She's been in the game for a minute, but I feel like the image/videos are so hit or miss.
As for the uptempos (Like It, Encounter, U&I, and No Limit) on the album, I really enjoy them for BoA songs. More specifically, despite BoA having such amazing technical ability as a dancer she is surprisingly lacking in BOPS. So all of the uptempos on this album go a little bit harder than usual for BoA, while still using her voice in interesting ways. So it's new territory for BoA in that I can't trace them back to "Oh this is just the newest version of Pit-A-Pat". But ultimately the arrangements and drops are very 2014-2015.
It's a shame because a song like Encounter really goes, and could be a 10/10 if it dug more into the drums and more of a 'tribal' polyrhythm that we hear in the verses and prechorus. And then the chorus is just a touch dated.
Good Love, I Want you Back, If, and Little More all feel like classic BoA songs but with an actual fresh take on them. I want you back and Good Love are especially fun as throwbacks because they really aren't THAT far from some of the 90s vibes that ID Peace B and No. 1 had going. But it's full circle and a whole new BoA singing them.
I also like that BoA doesn't feel the need to sing standard k-pop ballads anymore. The arrangements for those slower songs are alot more interesting now.
In the end I think, it's one of her better k-pop releases. But if you took the best of WOMAN and One Shot Two Shot, rearranged some of the uptempos from woman, and you'd have her best korean album.
Woman the title track is actually my least favorite song on the album. It's too formulaic and feels like it is literally checking all these boxes for a k-pop uptempo about ~female empowerment~. It's fun to listen to but it's similar to Hurricane Venus in that another singer could be on the record. While I'm more interested in songs that feel like BoA and only BoA could sing them (Only One, Kiss My Lips, and Irreversible are examples of this).
As for the video and performances, I enjoy the choreo but the scenes lifted from Formation are terrible. There's such a level of tone deaf cultural dissonance, to have the plantation scenes of Formation...but with BoA and white women. I also wish BoA would take her time or break free of whatever music videos. She's been in the game for a minute, but I feel like the image/videos are so hit or miss.
As for the uptempos (Like It, Encounter, U&I, and No Limit) on the album, I really enjoy them for BoA songs. More specifically, despite BoA having such amazing technical ability as a dancer she is surprisingly lacking in BOPS. So all of the uptempos on this album go a little bit harder than usual for BoA, while still using her voice in interesting ways. So it's new territory for BoA in that I can't trace them back to "Oh this is just the newest version of Pit-A-Pat". But ultimately the arrangements and drops are very 2014-2015.
It's a shame because a song like Encounter really goes, and could be a 10/10 if it dug more into the drums and more of a 'tribal' polyrhythm that we hear in the verses and prechorus. And then the chorus is just a touch dated.
Good Love, I Want you Back, If, and Little More all feel like classic BoA songs but with an actual fresh take on them. I want you back and Good Love are especially fun as throwbacks because they really aren't THAT far from some of the 90s vibes that ID Peace B and No. 1 had going. But it's full circle and a whole new BoA singing them.
I also like that BoA doesn't feel the need to sing standard k-pop ballads anymore. The arrangements for those slower songs are alot more interesting now.
In the end I think, it's one of her better k-pop releases. But if you took the best of WOMAN and One Shot Two Shot, rearranged some of the uptempos from woman, and you'd have her best korean album.
