aespa “Dirty Work” Review

I write this review with disappointed sighs leaking out of my chest.

aespa is literally my favorite 4th gen girl group. Their talent and capabilities. Their artistic daring and audacity. Their one-of-a-kind concepts and music videos. “Supernova” is like, my favorite, favorite, favorite K-pop song of the recent five years.

I’ve literally been waiting all week for “Dirty Work” to come out. Now that it finally has…I am so underwhelmed. I am so not impressed.

Concept/Message: 3

I swear…every K-pop group that reaches that peak level of K-pop success ends up making a “world domination” song at some point. I guess aespa’s come to that with “Dirty Work”. While they are so deserving of “world domination,” I personally abhor this concept. It’s just self gloating. Truly cool people don’t need to keep reiterating that they’re so cool. Besides, if you just keep on making truly exceptional music, you won’t need to self-gloat–so many will praise and honor you that you will have no need to do it yourself.

I guess I respect aespa for making the focus of this “world domination”-themed song the hard, “dirty work” that they did to get to this spot, though. They literally crawl through mud and stuff. If it wasn’t for that, I think I would’ve given “Dirty Work” a 2 for concept/message.

Visuals: 3

*Sigh…*

I just really don’t like videos that rely on a whole damn army of backup dancers to seem cool. There’s just so many other characters, so many other roles that backup dancers can play than just mindless minions following the idols around. Also: I sincerely dislike the gray, concrete, parking lot look in these sets. Come on. Parking lots have to literally be one of the most empty, depressing-looking locations in the world. Can we, as a society, agree to spend less time in places like that (and certainly not highlight it in our art)?

“Dirty Work” did do a good job of highlighting the girls’ crazy damn hot visuals, though. (I have to say: I love Giselle’s red hair. It so suits her.) But sometimes I think they overdid it a bit–do we really need to pull up that close to the girls’ lips or eyes? The aura of these women is really the only thing keeping me from giving “Dirty Work” a 2 in Visuals. 😦

Lyrics: 3

More disappointment incoming…

Ah yes, a repetitive, meaningless chorus. Sorry, but I have to say: they lowkey enunciate “business” kind of weirdly. I couldn’t tell they were saying “business” at first–I had to look at the lyrics. I think they kind of left out the first “s” sound–I don’t know if they did this intentionally or not?

The verses were alright–very typical words for a world-domination pop song–and had a hint of cringeyness added to it. “It’s me, it’s me, a little baddie / Just ‘cause I’m pretty doesn’t mean I don’t do hard things”–uh…Ningning, do you have to belittle yourself by calling yourself a “little baddie” and just “pretty”? Girl, you are drop-dead gorgeous…we need to stop demeaning ourselves here…

Music: 4

Okay, I liked the production here. The sound they used sounded like someone plucking a bunch of stretched rubber bands–definitely something new to hear. The deep range of this song was compelling too. Honestly, it sounded a bit outside of the girls’ range sometimes–I felt like their voices were straining a little–but the strains and low notes created a very memorable and catchy hook.

I’m honestly still quite disappointed with the sound here, though. aespa is literally the queen of singing, but they kind of hid all those powerhouse vocals in this really subdued mumble-talk-sing thing going on in this song. I would have loved just one verse in this song with just breakout singing to contrast all the mumbly stuff in here.