Review: Yukika - Scent
Over the past few years, Yukika has seen quite a lot of growth. She has yet to break out into the A-List, but her City-Pop-inspired music has garnered her much love and critical acclaim, and she is one of the few Korean (or Japanese-Korean in this case) artists to gain any notoriety within the western music fandom. Perhaps this is due to her songs basically being classic City-Pop, but with modern production. She peaked back in 2020 with the incredible Soul Lady album (which for whatever reason, I did not include on my top albums of the year list that year, oops). Either way, Scent is her best release since then.
In most modern adaptations, City-Pop is treated in quite a mellow fashion, grooving along subtlely. This is usually quite accurate, City-Pop is not heavy metal, after all. Unfortunately, sometimes, composers forget that City-Pop sometimes had tempo. Scent is one of the most upbeat City-Pop songs I've ever heard, feeling like a celebration of sorts. You can almost see this song being the heart of a fun little house party, bobbing around while still being danceable.
Thankfully, there are enough refrains to hold such a song together. The chorus is quite a joy, with multiple fully-sung refrains. This is a rarity in the modern pop scene, and it certainly helps that the refrains are actually quite good. Each hook plays off the previous, leading to something both upbeat and instantly nostalgic.
Yukika provides a decent performance, even if it is instantly obvious that this key is a little out of her zone. This creates a somewhat youthful element to the song which you would not see elsewhere. It does hold the song back a little, however.
As with every single City-Pop song ever, Scent's production is its real weapon. The celebratory brass along with the saxaphone is classic and effective, but even the drums and base production is surprisingly good here. There is something instantly contemporary about the production, while still hazy, like a cup of morning coffee meeting with retro synthesizers. It is a surprisingly joyous feeling.
In the last few sleepy months, Scent is an instant highlight. It may not be perfect, but it does set a high bar for the next few weeks for sure.
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