Fashionable Ok-pop has dramatically switched its lyrical focus from exterior storytelling, centered on the “you” or “they”, to boastful screeds that absolutely revolve across the “I”. “I’m so badass.” “I’m cooler than anybody else.” “I’m UNIQUE.” This bleeds into the music itself, which is commonly extra combative and hits like a structural punch as an alternative of unfolding as a sequential story. This problematic method tends to contain way more telling than displaying, which is without doubt one of the largest causes I discover so many of those tracks mind-numbingly boring.

P1Harmony’s new title monitor Distinctive is an ideal instance of this difficulty. It’s primarily a meaningless platitude — the sort of catchphrase you’d see on an affordable printed youngsters’s t-shirt at a giant field retailer. The fellows spend three minutes confidently telling us how distinctive they’re whereas the music itself sounds something however. With out an precise show of uniqueness, this idea loses all objective. It merely spins its wheels, underpinned with percussive-heavy manufacturing that might have anchored so many different current boy group choices.

Even with out all this subtext, Distinctive simply isn’t that enjoyable to hearken to. It looks like an over-serious lecture about how cool P1Harmony is. With out participating the viewers on a private stage, there’s no purpose to care about what the group thinks of themselves. No quantity of “pow pow pow” or “la la la la la” interjections will repair that. By holding us at a distance, they’ve sacrificed the enjoyment a hype monitor like this may ship.

Grade: D-