Review: Seventeen - Home;Run

Seventeen (세븐틴) at 2015 Summer K-POP Festival.jpg
By Korea.net / Korean Culture and Information Service (Photographer name), CC BY-SA 2.0, Link, from Wikimedia

 Review: Seventeen - Home;Run

Sorry for taking, like, forever to get this review out!

May I just say how painful it is to write this review while spell-check keeps wanting me to fix the word 'Home;Run'. Can't blame it too, I initially thought Big Hit made a spelling error when commissioning the title. Nevertheless, I will bear through the review through my sheer iron will.

I love big band elements as well as these retro swing and jazz influences. Super Junior's 'Black Suit' is one of my favorite K-Pop songs ever, and I have been listening to a lot of jazz-era music this month, more than modern pop actually. I love Seventeen, they are one of the most promising groups to arise from the second half of the last decade, Home;Run was acclaimed by people with similar music tastes to mine, so this should be an easy 9, right? Well, not really.

First things, the clap samples instantly steal the show and the verses answer the question of "how would K-Jazz/Big Band/Swing era music?". I love the vibing verses. The classy pre-chorus is also very 108 Ent-liking-style.

The chorus, on the other hand, is a tad bit one-note. It could so do with a better emphasis on the excellent instrumental. And while the hooks fall flat, the instrumental is one of my favorites this month.

Home;Run is just one of those songs where it is hard to judge how it will age, my possible scores varied from 9.25 to 7.5 (explaining the late arrival of the review). In the end, I think the song has finally clicked with me, though not at a 9.25 level, it is a solid song with tons of room to grow.

Rating: 8.75/10

Comments

  1. You have made my day! What you said was accurate. This year I thought Big Hit was planning an Oscar-bait approach to critics since they released these Critic-bait songs lol. Well, kidding aside, this song has not grown to be good to me after 4 days I stopped replaying. Maybe because of the nature of the chorus or I just do not like baity-songs well a 9/10.

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    1. Big Hit's oscar bait philosophy is something I did not realize, I felt that they really went for it with MOTS:7, and it was successful. I hope they just let BTS be BTS in BE (that sounds funny).

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  2. Very weird week indeed, SEVENTEEN garnered 86 (this is the Metacritic score I extrapolated on our reviews), TXT garnered partial 91, TWICE garnered 85.

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    1. Cool Scores! I wonder how the TXT song's score will change after my review. Just wondering, which reviewers do you use for your score? I am impressed that you can actually compile it!

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    2. You know even if you score TXT with a 7 they will still garner 85 which is pretty good. I extrapolated the data on TheBiasList, KPOPREVIEWED and my score plus your score.

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    3. Those are some good sites! Personally, I am surprised Kbopped and IZM did not make the cut, but I am happy that I did :)

      Also, KPOPREVIEWED really did lower that Twice score, and boy did you like the TXT track! Not complaining though, the TXT track is actually quite good!

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    4. I'll add them! Thanks for the tip! I'm actually finding some sites then maybe I can finally start up a blog on that. IZM I do not usually include since I can't find reviews on the spot, and IZM takes a long time to contact.

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    5. I would absolutely love to see the blog!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. 108-Ent! If you want to see the Metacritic scores I have the link here:
      https://1drv.ms/x/s!AnkgwR_7uQ5igSaS-NsuRq_A78pL?e=giwcQi

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    2. Awesome list StillBangtan! I really would love to see it grow!

      A review compiler like that could be very useful in K-Pop, especially since everyone seems more keen to review albums (and I love albums, but the singles deserve love too).

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    3. (Oh, and just a side note, I think Kbopped gave feel good 8.75, I gave it 7.75)

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  4. Good morning, I love your reviews so much. Can I take your time and ask you to be part of the selection committee for this year’s award season?

    First of all is the GMF (Gayo Music Festival), the annual festival held every October to award the best releases in the month. It only accounts submissions during October. Here is the link to the voting page: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PQPG7FY

    Please vote and thanks!

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