written by: TESTAMENTVM

Just a little over a month after their official debut, Gangkiz - the seven-member outfit housed under GM Contents Media (a CCM spinoff that also manages Co-Ed School) – has released the repackaged version of their underwhelming first album (‘We Became Gang’) titled ‘MAMA’.  And as many observant fans have noted, this repackaged EP and its title track also share the same name as EXO-K‘s debut single.  Whether a clever marketing tactic to drive more search traffic to Gangkiz or purely coincidental, I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

In light of the unimpressive chart performance of “Honey Honey“, it’s interesting that GMC, rather than change tack, is sticking to its guns in this latest release. Not that “MAMA” is bad – if anything, it’s catchy, with the same elements of the retro-trot-meets-Italo-disco-at-a-Korean-nightclub flair that characterized the tracks on “We Became Gang”.

In fact, so overt and obvious are these resemblances that it might almost be more accurate to characterize “MAMA” as remix of “Tonight” (which, interestingly, does not make an appearance on this mini). With its sultry, spaghetti-Western whistle hook and breathless ruminations on heartbreak (“What do I do MAMA, MA MA MAMA/What do I do, it hurts, hurts/I think of you oh oh tears come oh oh/I didn’t forget you, like a fool“), listeners who enjoyed “We Became Gang” will find that the “gang” hasn’t strayed to far from their first album. Which is fine – unless you’ve already heard “Tonight”.

Even the choreography for this single – which, in all fairness, is much better than the “Honey Honey” choreography – is a watered-down version of the original, which you can see here (embedding disabled).

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Net Assesment: Essentially, “MAMA” is a remix of “Tonight”.  A little catchier, but not worth the DL if you don’t like trot, or if you’ve already heard “Tonight”.

3/5