party o'clock (a midsummer nmixx's dream); nmixx

july 15 2023

I've never been the biggest Nmixx fan, as is perhaps evidenced by the fact that I've never covered their music here. It's not even that I hate their music, because I've reviewed songs that I've disliked before— I'm just completely uninterested. I haven't even listened to "O.O" in full, having heard a fifteen second clip on Twitter and having decided that was enough for me. I've given a couple of their songs a fair chance ("COOL (Your rainbow)" is good, and there's even a couple parts in "Dice" that I like), but nothing has ever really wowed me.

When they first debuted, there were a lot of comparisons to Loona (and even some plagiarism allegations), but it's like someone took all of my least favorite parts of ot12 Loona and smushed them into a JYP group. Maybe I'm just not the target audience for JYP, because I'm not a huge Twice or Itzy fan either (at least their current directions). I like a lot of Twice's old music and a couple Itzy tracks, but I find JYP's creative and musical direction to just be not my thing. I don't think they're bad groups, by any means— just not for me!

Which is why it was so surprising that I really liked Nmixx's prerelease track, "Roller Coaster." Like, I'm actually mad at how good this song is and the fact that none of their other music sounds like this. It's definitely a major departure from their usual musical style, ditching the "mixxpop" for a more straightforward dreamy house pop. This is Nmixx's first year at the PinkPantheress School of Music, Korean branch, majoring in NewJeans. Vibe-driven songs like this rely heavily on a memorable chorus to elevate them from "background music" to "truly good," and "Roller Coaster" has a ridiculously strong and catchy chorus. Really, it has a really good prechorus, chorus, and post chorus— all three are catchy, without tipping over into repetitive and annoying.

I've always hated songs that feel like they're trying to brute force their way into your brain simply by virtue of repeating a word or phrase over and over again (it feels like they're trying to brainwash me), and that's what I felt Nmixx's last release, "Love Me Like This," was trying to do. "Roller Coaster" doesn't need to be repetitive— it lets its catchy hooks do all the work. Lily also sings her ass off on this track, elevating the final chorus to new heights (literally!).

Unfortunately, the actual title track for this release, "Party O'Clock," isn't quite as good. It's frustrating, because this song is so close to actually being good, but is bogged down by a few baffling choices. The song immediately starts off on a disjointed foot, with a jarring chanted intro that fails to show off the group's strengths. It feels very strained and even awkward. This is what I was talking about earlier— the song deploys a repetitive phrase, as if unconfident in its own catchiness.

But when the girls actually start singing, this song is... good? Like, almost as good as "Roller Coaster?" It has a good melody and a great buildup to a super solid and catchy chorus that's guaranteed to get stuck in your head effortlessly. I started to get into the song, then BAM! All the great momentum the song was building instantly trips and falls flat on its face so that they can deliver a mediocre post-chorus second verse rap. This kind of song structure feels very dated and like something you'd find in a much older song, for a group with much less competent singers. Nmixx are great vocalists, so why is JYP having them lean on chanting, speaksinging, and rapping?

Throughout the song, every time they start to build up momentum, its frustratingly dashed with the toneless "It's party time" chant. They build up to agreat bridge? "It's party time." A fun final chorus? Kneecapped by being prefaced with "it's party time." It's so frustrating, because the entire time I was listening to this song I was thinking about how much I liked the chorus and how much better this song would be if that ridiculous chant was just removed. But hey, at least Nmixx have really captured the feeling of being at a party you're only at because you heard your crush was going to be there— small bits of payoff amidst boring drudgery, it would probably be more fun with a drink, and you're really just counting down the minutes until you can go home.