So, Aespa has once again released just a music video with no physical, so this will be a shorter review, as it’s just one song, I’m going to lump the song and video together for this one as well, no reason to separate it out.
Next Level
So the music video is not particularly intricate, it’s more or less a performance version with a few extra scattered shots and solo sections. That said, the shots and solo sections we do get seem to be related to the Aespa plotline, which SM put out a 10+ minute video to explain, which is one of my biggest storytelling pet peeves. See, the plot doesn’t stand on its own without an explanation, you get random moments in the story shown and buzzwords thrown at you throughout this song and Black Mamba, but would have no idea that it means anything without having it explained to you, that’s bad storytelling, plain and simple. Does that detract from my enjoyment of the video as a visual experience, no, it actually looks fantastic and is very easy to watch, but I do have a personal pet peeve with storytelling needing supplementation to be enjoyed, it’s something that the Halo video game series REALLY struggles with as well.
The song is super interesting however, there are so many musical change-ups throughout that it may as well be its own story. There are more or less 4 songs mashed into this one, with the front and back being the same song with three others in the middle. I’ve seen a lot of commenters online that didn’t like it due to the musical whiplash, but I actually loved it. I think that all of these parts are individually interesting and good, but something about having them almost haphazardly stitched together just absolutely engages me. The highlights are the catchy “next level” sections, the middle jazzy section with Ningning and Winter, and the following rap section with Giselle and Karina. If you like SNSD’s I Got A Boy, you’ll like this, it has that same artistically chaotic energy that really appeals to a certain listener’s musical profiles and is abrasive to most others, so there’s also no shame in not liking it, it’s just frankly not for everybody.
Ratings
Video: 6/10
Song 8.5+/10
I still need time to really sort out my feelings with the song, but I think it only goes up for me the more I listen, otherwise it will stay even. The video gets a 6 because it is visually great, but that’s about the depth of the video, so, slightly above what a chalk average video would be (5 would be average for me, if I think that little of something, I won’t review it), but not by all that much.