[Review] Let’s Have a Party EP by Nine Muses

Nine Muses is one of those brand new groups who debuted this month.  Another is GP Basic and I’ll see if I get around to touching base on their music. For now we’ll give Nine Muses the taste test and see what they’re about.

I gave this EP – Let’s Have a Party – a good listen yesterday and was 100% over it by the time I forced myself to listen to it a fourth time.  In layman’s terms, this group is nothing special. They bring absolutely nothing innovative to the Korean music industry and pretty much cloned SNSD’s Genie for their title track ‘No Playboy’, which they did a terrible job at without the courtesy of calling it a copy.

There is no cohesion in this EP, which I never really expect from a Kpop group, but this is just bad. The two songs ‘No Playboy’ and the opener ‘Ladies’ have no business being together, yet they’re there.  ‘Ladies’ lacks a middle 8, what I assume is a staple in pop music? It wants to sound good, with the playful melodies, but there’s no life in their vocals. Nine Muses is just singing (kind of) just for the hell of it and if you don’t believe me, wait til you see them live in a second.

Vocally, this group is a snore-fest. At this moment in time, I can’t find a good enough singer in here to rave about, and there usually is at least one in every Kpop group.  Kpop may get overly cheesy and dangerously heinous, but one thing stands as a fact – Korean agencies know how to scout incredible talent.

Now, what else can I say about ‘No Playboy’ other than it’s a lifeless take on a really great pop song? Nothing, really because lifeless is all this group is. They are rookies, though, but there have been more explosive debuts in the past and Nine Muses sound like they wont be bringing anything great any time soon.

As performers, they lack just about the same amount of energy as the song itself. The instrumental wasn’t meant to be heard live like this because it’s obviously way too low-key for a live audience. Nine Muses look and sound awkward in the performance below and I won’t lie, I’m suffering from second-hand embarrassment just from watching it.

Either this group goes back to the drawing board or drops out of the Kpop scene altogether because this is lazy music and that’s just not my thing. I want to say that they’re forgettable, but that requires you remember them when they re-appear. No. You will not remember this group in a year’s time. Period.