The marketing campaign for BTS’s ARIRANG album continues unabated with the discharge of one other music video. This time, Hooligan will get its time within the highlight. This monitor was promoted with dance challenges even earlier than the debut of its video, making it really feel like a co-lead monitor with Swim. For these trying to recapture the boisterous vitality of BTS’s previous, this is perhaps the music for you. Nevertheless, I discover it one of many lesser choices from an already underwhelming album.

Proper from the beginning, Hooligan hinges on a couple of sonic gimmicks, from jeering laughter to the sound impact of sharpened swords. On this means, it jogs my memory of a Stray Youngsters music (and no, I’m not attempting to begin a fan struggle for the ages!). This brash opening is sort of instantly softened by a strings-heavy monitor that blends old-school instrumentation with fashionable influences. Given a greater music, I think about this distinction could possibly be fairly compelling. It jogs my memory of the mid-00s, when hip-hop began to tug closely from retro soul samples.

Sadly, Hooligan isn’t all that incredible of a music. The refrain is kind of obnoxious even earlier than its incessant snickering. I admire how the stream of the verses is extra various and nuanced than the monotony of 2.0, however an excessive amount of of the monitor feels downright torpid. That is at odds with Hooligan‘s taunting vitality and shortly turns into uninspired. There are a couple of moments of melodic heat that work properly underpinned by these seesawing strings samples, however general Hooligan is a hodgepodge of concepts that by no means absolutely click on collectively. It’s most likely finest performed in ten second snippets on TikTok and different SNS platforms.

Grade: C