When I brought up Mnet’s Produce and IZ*ONE last week, it led me down a rabbit hole to taking another look at IZ*ONE’s predecessors, I.O.I.
I.O.I (no, not the bad guys from Ready Player One) was the first project group to come out of the Produce series, and Very Very Very came near the tail end of their temporary one-year contract. While there was quite a strong fan movement to keep I.O.I going after their expiration date, hearts and minds weren’t enough to keep the vagaries of business decisions at bay, and I.O.I would disband as scheduled. Hey, at least we got this tear-jerking goodbye song out of it.
I like Very Very Very quite a bit, which is weird, because from a music theory perspective, it simply isn’t very (heh) good. The chorus is nonsensical, the ending fade-out is awkward (especially when performed live), the background percussion is repetitive, and the track as a whole sacrifices musical integrity for the sake of addictiveness.
This tracks with many of my other dubious K-Pop pleasures, like T-ara’s Yayaya or Girl’s Day’s Ring My Bell, which both suffer from many of the above problems (I challenge anyone reading this to interpret Yayaya’s lyrics, in particular). They simply aren’t good songs, but their innate catchiness keeps me coming back for more. They’ve got me figured out.