Album Review: K-POPS! (Music from and Inspired by K-POPS! Motion Picture) by Anderson .Paak
A soundtrack that flirts its way through seventeen tracks and only stops flirting twice, when a kid sings and a father answers.
Anderson .Paak wrote himself a movie about a washed-up American chasing fame in Seoul, cast a wall of K-pop idols around his own face, and built the soundtrack to match, yet the strange, sharp thing about it is how rarely he wins his own scenes. For long stretches the man with his name on the marquee is the third or fourth most interesting voice in his own booth, flirting his way through a room where the guests walk off with the scene. CHUNG HA goes first, on “Bet On U,” where .Paak opens as the high roller talking up his hand, calling himself her Chanel sweater and laying his bankroll on the table, only to abandon the flirt at the end and play a pilot welcoming the cabin over the intercom, the captain announcing himself to a plane she already left, her chips gathered, her seat empty.
Skipping baggage claim and popping tags in Japan, SOYEON works “International” past a stranger who wants to place her face. “Well, that depends if you’re hip to Crown Princess,” she tells him, and waves her henchmen through before he can answer. Every brag arrives sharp and on the way to a gate she is already late for. “I’m the star of the show, no matter where I’m at,” she raps near the end, “cheap copies and clones, I had enough of that.” .Paak rides shotgun on his own track, just another guest at the back of somebody else’s hit. SOYEON owns the runway.
On “Caution,” .Paak gets pulled over and waves the guests up front: “excuse me, officer, pardon for speeding/but NMIXX is performing this evening.” NMIXX run their own warnings, best proceed with caution, might end up in a coffin, and call for the yellow tape. They file the word “caution” down to a siren, and the standoff that follows turns sharp and mean where the flirting on these songs only ever turns cute. The win is NMIXX’s. Their host just steps aside. “Got that violent attitude,” they warn, “we ain’t compromising.”
Once DEAN gets the mic on “Aftertaste,” bodies turn into food. Wanting comes out as hunger, “I want your aftertaste/Five star, three course, Michelin plate,” and .Paak answers crude, promising to get a girl wetter than the weather app. “PITC” walks into a room, sees a person as a plate, “hey, my love, can I bite it?”, then chops the night down to a verb list: work, drink, sweat, dance, head, waist, legs, damn. “You’ll fall in love with just one bite,” he warns on “Just One Bite,” already the ace of spades dealing the next hand. That hunger is DEAN’s. Funny, well-built come-ons, thin as paper, every craving passed to the next mouth before the last goes cold. Still DEAN never gets fed.
On “Keychain,” aespa puts conditional ownership on the table, clip me to your hip, while bolting the rest shut: “can’t give you combinations or the keys to the safe.” That fine print is ignored while status objects are stacked over it, teeth like Labubu, bling on the Miu Miu, so many keys he scores a hall pass. Being wanted comes easy to him, “keep me on your hip, keep me on your wrist,” all hardware and cold to the touch. aespa keeps the keys.
“Love’s not black, white, brown, or burgundy,” Soul Rasheed offers on “Love Is Everywhere,” plain as a recital, “all the colors combine and it comes right back to me.” .Paak’s son sings it with nobody beside him, no idol, no flirt running under it. “Take a look outside and breathe the air, look around,” he sings, “love is everywhere.” The most raw, least trained voice on “K-POPS!” cracks a window in a room that had been sealed since the first siren. No bars sit straighter than Soul Rasheed’s.
Answering his own son on “The Last,” .Paak stands alone, the flirt gone for good. “My father threw in the towel, too afraid of the heartbreak,” he sings, turning the inheritance down in the next breath: “but I can’t go out that way.” He walks straight into the fear the rest of the songs kept ducking, “I’m not afraid when you hold me/’cause you never hold me back.” A whole hour of disposable charm bought these two raw and living minutes. The only promise nobody could buy off him gets made here: “these things, I swear, it’s for you, I’ll be there/’til the last.”
Across “Wildcard” and “One More Dance,” .Paak steps out of the booth entirely. Kevin Woo gets only “it should be me” to chew on, and JOSHUA begs “come give me one more dance” with the lights pinned to the center stage and nothing moving behind them. These are the dead, thin spots, a guest filling each slot the way furniture fills a room, useful enough until somebody opens a window. “As long as your hand’s in mine, we’re dancing all night,” JOSHUA sings, still working a floor that emptied long ago.
Solid (★★★½☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Caution,” “Bet On U,” “The Last”