Review: Golden Child - DDARA

Golden Child is basically the perfect example of what has worked and has not for the 4th generation of K-Pop boy bands. Fantastic vocalists and rappers, strong performances, and good melodies. At the same time, the group has struggled due to corporate mismanagement, member losses, excessive competition, and perhaps most notably, they have no signature sound. Each release, Golden Child sound totally different. Sometimes they go Latin, sometimes it is pure pop, sometimes their releases are highly experimental, at other times too safe.

DDARA is the lead single of the group's reissued version of the album Game Changer. Its previous single Ra Pam Pam, garnered a negative review from this site and has not aged too well for me. At the same time, several of the b-sides sound weaker with age. Thus, I personally was highly excited when it was announced the song was produced and arranged by long-time collaborator, BLSSD, who was behind their excellent trilogy of singles from November 2019 to June 2020.

DDARA is certainly way weaker than any of those three songs. Notably, BLSSD's classic ability: telling a story through music, feels a little lacking. Instead, DDARA feels like a one-off, not an entry from a well-planned saga of singles. 

Another thing, the song is the genre of New Jack Swing. BLSSD is a producer who works best when updating overused material. However, at the moment, a New Jack Swing sound is quite fresh. Thus, his updates are even more of a left turn than normal.

Rather than pushing the ambition of the sound, BLSSD does something different, he mutes the sound. New Jack Swing is highly tied to the history of Korean music, and a nostalgic track would do wonders for Golden Child's popularity. Perhaps something like 1Punch's underrated gem Turn Me Back. However, BLSSD's mued sound might build a different listener base.

Nick James, of TheBiasList, criticized the song, "It’s as if we’re listening to the instrumental underwater". I believe this was the aim, of BLSSD, and it works excellently. The production never explodes, while staying incredibly limited. This is a genius gimmick and makes the song feel drunk and drowned. The bridge further builds on this, with productional flourishes commonly seen in underwater themes.

However, this limits what was the biggest benefit to the BLSSD trilogy, and Golden Child's best work: Their productional flourishes. Golden Child, vocally speaking, is a highly diverse group. Each member has a different timbre, with Joochan and Y especially standing out. Burn It, One (Lucid Dream), and Without You, all thrived on their productional flourishes. Would the post-chorus in Burn It hit as hard if it was not for the flipping reggaeton beat? Would the pre-chorus of One work as well as it did if not for the growing atmospheric synths? And perhaps most strikingly, how would Without You's chorus work if not the popping electronic instrumentation? The lack of productional flourishes actually was my biggest issue with Game Changer, and even its best track, Fanfare, suffered from a lack of flourishes.

DDARA has its fair share of flourishes, but they are all muted with the instrumentation, leaving most of the heavy-hitting straight to the vocals. Normally, this would be a killing flaw, but this is Golden Child we are talking about. The members give an exemplary performance. This peaks in the central refrain, with all the voices together in sync, the 'DDA RA DDA DDA RA' hooks are an absolute joy, along with the joyous chant of 'Yeah this is how we do it!'.

However, the vocals and instrumental rarely meet, with the exception of the muted snare drum. The end result is the song feels like two distinct pieces taped together at the edges. This is a mixing problem strongly affecting many modern releases. A potential solution the song could have tried would have been slightly processing the vocals to merge them into the music, as TXT's Ghosting had done when facing a similar issue. Another potential solution would be to add some clapping percussion, or maybe some hi-hats, as a sort of bridge.

The actual melody is pretty strong in its own right. It twists and turns in several strong directions, particularly in the second phase of the chorus, with the voices sung in union. It falters at times, such as during the second verse, a rap break that fails to live up to Jangjun and Tag's potential. The falsetto in the verses, along with the call-and-response, in particular, is a highlight not to be missed. The hooks may not be highly catchy, but they are far from lethargic.

In the end, DDARA is a solid release from Golden Child, even if it does nothing for the group's musical growth. It will be interesting to see where they go from here, and how.

Rating: 8.25/10

Image Source: Kpop Live Polska