[UNITEDKPOP SINGLE REVIEW] BESTie - 'Thank U Very Much'

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BESTie are a four-member girl group that debuted last year from YNB Entertainment. The group is made up of Hyeyeon, UJi, Dahye and Haeryung. Interestingly, all except Dahye are actually former members of the girl group EXID, but previously all left to either concentrate on their studies or to pursue an acting career. Let’s take a look at their latest single entitled ‘Thank U Very Much’!


Concept

YNB Entertainment actually commented that their aim for this single was to show a concept that gives: “…performances that differentiate BESTie's color from the here and now that is overflowing with excessive sexy concepts." This is indeed a breath of fresh air when considering recent sexy girl group concepts such as STELLA’s controversial ‘Marionette’ venture. This track is all about thanking a horrible ex-boyfriend for cheating. It is sort of like a realisation that someone you were with actually did not treat you right and was not good enough for you, so feeling a sense of relief that they gave you an excuse to end the relationship. The music video is quite sweet and girly as we see all the members comforting a very disgruntled Haeryung as she thinks over what her ex-boyfriend did to her. The others manage to drag her out to the arcade to have some fun and take her mind off things. They play games and generally make a mess of the place together whilst laughing and smiling. The concept is fun and very happy overall; the girls are still wearing short shorts and gyrating a little, so the sexuality is not entirely removed in any case. Having said this though, the way the girls act silly and the lack of close-ups on rear-ends and legs does help to make this concept a lot less sexual than others.

Choreography

The choreography for this track really reminds me of what we were shown in SISTAR’s ‘Alone’. The way the girls slowly raise their legs up, wiggle their hips and trace their hands down their bodies does make it very similar. Aside from this, the dance has a lot of fun features that will be easy for fans to copy. There is some jumping and shaking of the bum that will probably have you laughing if you try it out with your friends. In short the choreography is not that different to what you see from many other girl groups and is very feminine in its nature. It has some quite sexualized moments, but generally maintains a quite cute and fun feel.

Song

This is the sort of song that will undoubtedly be on repeat inside your head, the English hook-line practically embeds itself into your mind from the first listen. The song was created by the very talented composers Duble Sidekick (you can learn more about them here), who have been the brains behind many a K-Pop hit, so really it is no surprise that this song feels like classically infectious K-Pop. As aforementioned, it is an incredibly upbeat and happy song – but most importantly – it does not feel like it is trying too hard to be so. There are some songs that can feel like they are forcing you to feel a certain way by overdoing every aspect, but this song is the sort that you don’t even realise you are smiling about until around half-way through. In fact, you will probably be smiling and bopping along to this track before you know it, so be careful if listening to it when out and about; people might think you are mad!

Highlight

When the song randomly stops very briefly and Hyeyeon kicks the can into the air and when Dahye uses her bum to win on the arcade hammer game machine!

Overall UK Potential – 2.5/5

The only reason I gave this song such a low score for UK potential is that I think it doesn’t have enough of the ‘Western factor’ to be really successful here. The overall feel is 'too K-Pop' for it to sit comfortably within the Western mainstream. Of course, this is not to be considered a weakness as such, in fact it is what many international K-Pop fans enjoy about the genre, but unfortunately, it can mean that it has less of a general Western appeal. Having said this though, it is probably a song that many of your ‘non-K-Pop’ friends will enjoy as a guilty pleasure of sorts, simply because it is very catchy and happy.

If you have not seen the MV yet, you can watch it below!:



Be sure to also check out the video message BESTie kindly recorded for UnitedKpop!

Want some more K-Pop about being single and happy? Take a look at this playlist!