Make Believe Melodies 63: You Got City Pop On My NewJeans!
If You Ever Thought The 2022 Best-Of List Was Going To Come Out In A Timely Manner....
There have always been fantastic remixes of K-pop songs floating around the internet. Yet NewJeans — the Y2K-coated girl group that debuted last summer and which seems poised to be a potential defining act of this year — has inspired a particular swell of reworks all across the internet. Not to spend too much time on the why, but I think it has something to do with the relatively direct and simple structure of their songs — the preceding generation of K-pop was defined by songs with herky-jerky turns into new passages and sounds, even if said twists served more as theatrical flair than coherent sonic idea. NewJeans jumped out almost immediately for mostly going from point A to point B, maximizing what they present rather than cramming in as much as they can.
The group’s uncomplicated structures — coupled with electronic base sound — seems to make their songs particularly inviting to play around with. And boy, have people been fiddling with them, from house mutations to Jersey club re-imaginings to a drill take on “Cookie.” I’m well aware of the fallacy of letting one’s algorithm dictate “online trends,” but I’m not alone in seeing how many NewJeans remixes have arrived online, especially following latest songs “Ditto” and “OMG.”1 Yeah, I’m a person who should safely expect to have a “highschool band remix” of a K-pop remix cross their feed…but much more well-adjusted individuals are getting it too.
Yet one constant style keeps coming up, and it’s especially interesting to me — city pop.
Like…of course! Group embraced by internet collides with older genre also embraced by internet. Some of these remixes certainly seem vaguely aware of the actual history of city pop in Japan and South Korea, but most are products of the 2010s rediscovery period for the style, extending to the sound and image (Hiroshi Nagai, still getting that web love). This isn’t a new development — but it seems particularly pronounced with NewJeans.
As someone fascinated by this intersection — and clearly focused on the goofiest of topics — I’ve spent a lot of time listening to these city pop remixes. So why not make a ranking of the NewJeans’ songs best suited for what people imagine the sounds of Bubble era Japan to sound like! Some important notes:
Only Songs Uploaded To YouTube Count: This is “city pop” as defined by “Plastic Love,” .GIFs of anime people doing laundry and compilations with titles like “cherish your solitude.” If TM Revolution remixes “Attention” we can talk about the actual ‘80s, but for now let’s zero in on the platform where this all plays out.
“City pop” has to be part of the title, or heavily implied enough to be clear: Sorry “Retro Remix,” “‘80s Remix” and “1984 Synthwave Remix” — commit, or get out of here. Exceptions made for obvious mashups AND remixes that don’t mention city pop but boast a thumbnail clearly indicating a fondness for metropolitan skylines and bright lights.
This extends to “future funk” remixes: A tough call, but I’m more interested in the people trying to capture some lost vibe they never actually experienced than the people focused on speeding it up, even if I love the anime-style bunny they came up for the art. This goes for Night Tempo too, though he’s indulging in a different kind of disco fantasia with his “Ditto” remix.
I’m grading on the overall body of city pop work for the song: Every NewJeans’ tune has featured city pop remixes amounting too “I’ve heard ‘Sparkle’ and, by God, I think I can make this work.” We are looking for the gems, even if it means sifting through a lot of recyclables.
The best NewJeans remix to date is this trot rework of “OMG” which doesn’t apply to this dingus-brained newsletter, BUT!: You should listen to this one.
OK, now that I have your “Attention,” let’s get into this!
6. “Cookie”
Representative Remix
There’s like two city pop attempts at “Cookie,” which kind of makes sense. This features the most obvious attempt by the NewJeans team at connecting with a specific American sound — Jersey club, primarily via the breakdown — and removing it from that context just feels off. City pop, in particular, is not a corner of music built to go that fast, so the few attempts at adding gold flakes to this sweet either feel clunky (above) or end up sounding like an anime ending theme.
Tatsuro Yamashita’s Reaction To All This:
5. “Attention”
Representative Remix
If “Cookie” is too tied to the tempos of today, “Attention” fails to work as city pop because it’s already designed to echo a different era. As nearly every review of the single pointed out upon release, NewJeans’ debut nods to Y2K sounds and sights. The smooth late ‘90s energy is distant just enough from the glisten of city pop to seemingly dissuade folks from reworking “Attention” into a Bubble-era cut, outside of the two uploads featured above.
Hilariously, you can find “90s remixes” of “Attention,” even though that seems as ridiculous as making something like “Money Machine (Hyperpop Remix).”
Tatsuro Yamashita’s Reaction To All This:
4. “OMG”
Representative Remix:
We’re now into the meat of this exercise, as the remaining four NewJeans’ songs offer a bounty of city pop remixes clogging up YouTube. Critically, they also allow for a lot more imagination regarding what “NewJeans, but city pop” can be. You get twinklier high-stepping strolls like the above DNLB remix, to a slinkier stripped-down take courtesy of PandaUsagibeats (bonus points for the vocal mutations later on). There’s also some…efforts from beginners at remixing, don’t give up!
There’s also multiple mash-ups of “OMG” with a city pop song from the proper era…and the “a” there is vital.
Two people merged “OMG” with Akina Nakamori’s “Oh No, Oh Yes!,” though they also might be blurring the line towards the city pop patron saint of YouTube, Mariya Takeuchi, who wrote the song and also performed it. This is vital — connecting dots between what’s come before and what is out now.
Anyway, “OMG” finishes fourth largely because there’s way more remixes exploring other styles, and they tend to be better than these (that BRLLNT remix, wooo).
Tatsuro Yamashita’s Reaction To All This:
3. “Hurt”
Representative Remix:
The most forgettable NewJeans’ song to date turns out to be perfect for building something new. “Hurt” in its original form is a stroll around the block, a calming come down after the three previous songs on the group’s first EP made everyone lost their minds. It’s the sparsest musically, too…and that ends up being a huge boom for its city pop potential. The above Marukao Beats (NOTE: Since publishing, it has been removed from YouTube, but you can hear it elsewhere) rework fills in all that space with synth wisps, guitar strums and…my god, finally, horns! Synthesized sure, but it’s that blast that gives a lot of city pop its oomph and energy. Here, they hit right when “Hurt” needs it.
People have a lot of fun with “Hurt!” We are also seeing a lot of familiar names popping up in this space — DNLB gives it a lovesick hotel-lounge piano vibe, while Yegugu delivers their personal best rework by channeling “Midnight Pretenders” in how keyboard dapples the whole affair. The attempt to meld this to “Plastic Love” fails, but at least they tried.
While not helping it in my extremely scientific process on display here, “Hurt” also has inspired some delightful covers in the city pop style. Look at these friends running around the snow and singing into a toy microphone! Or see this one, courtesy of Fyeqoodgurl (who also covers a bunch of Thai pop, salute).
Tatsuro Yamashita’s Reaction To All This:
2. “Hype Boy”
Representative Remix:
I fully expected “Hurt” to produce a lot of great remixes, because the original just hangs around in the air. I did not expect “Hype Boy” to…sound kind of fantastic in this context?
Perhaps I’m being blinded by my top two picks also being my personal picks for best NewJeans releases so far, but I figured the fidgety electronic nature of “Hype Boy” would be closer to “Cookie” — something fitting for “now” and not all that fun for nostalgia exercises. But nope! Turns out the way the chorus ratchets up makes it perfect for a barrage of flutes and horns to come rushing in like in the above, or to be turned into a Toshiki Kadomatsu-ish cut by Matt Prasty. And horns, horns galore! Even the one that sounds like it was recorded in a karaoke box down the hall kind of goes.
Then you have this one, which is…accidentally an Especia song? No complaints from me.
Tatsuro Yamashita’s Reaction To All This:
1. “Ditto”
Representative Remix:
By sheer volume, “Ditto” runs away with this. I mean, “Ditto” seems like the song everyone wants to remix in whatever style they see fit. Here, have an “Amusement Park Version” or a Vocaloid cover. The number of “city pop” takes dwarfs the others, and if we did include the ones that are just like “‘80s remix” you could fill up a double album.
My extremely naive take — I think it’s just because “Ditto” is their best song, and people gravitate to it, whether they want to mash it up with The Weeknd (this counts because “Midnight Pretenders”) or pretend they are performing on a 1987 episode of Music Station (doesn’t count, unfortunately). That would partially explain all of the many city pop takes on it, from flashy to forlorn.
Though what gives it the top spot is…all these remixes also perfectly sum up how city pop has been received online, for better and for worse. All the sonic qualities of YouTube popular city pop comes across in these “Ditto” reworks, with very little daring in expanding what “city pop” means — where’s the one that sounds like “Watermelon Dandies,” or “Misty Love” — and relying on a lot of familiar reference points2. Mainly…this is the one with several “Plastic Love” blends, with the one at top being the best (and actually fitting, which might be the guarantor for the gold…of this newsletter). That’s not like a really bad thing — this is all people on YouTube having fun, and it’s not like HYBE is gonna notice as they buy up everything — but does at least add a little depth to all this. People love NewJeans…but they are also expressing their love of other sounds through them.
Tatsuro Yamashita’s Reaction To All This:
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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Critical reception of NewJeans has been overwhelmingly positive since they’ve debuted, and I’m not one to step up and muck that up — “Ditto,” in particular, is an absolute masterclass — BUT I’m a little worried based off the videos for these two newest songs that the folks behind it are going to lean too much into “lore,” which is the first real warning blip I’ve picked up some this group. Please…just let them be a pop group, we already have virtual idols and convoluted stories and KWANGYA (which they might end up being pulled into anyway). I’m relieved ever so slightly by how much better the “performance video” is doing.
Shout out this mashup of BaBe’s “Give Me Up” instrumental with Wonder Girls’ “Tell Me” and NewJeans…???, which is actually what the description says.