Song Review: BONA BONA by TREASURE

After the release of ‘Move’, which currently remains to be one of my favourite K-pop songs of the year, my interest in TREASURE’s music has fully been re-kindled. Unfortunately, while ‘BONA BONA’ has moments of brilliance, its uninspiring chorus brings the whole final product down.

‘BONA BONA’ has some of the best opening verses I’ve heard in K-pop in a while. It is immediately gripping, with the choices of instrumentation harking back to classics from Western Pop, most reminiscent of Clean Bandit’s mega-hit ‘Symphony’, which happens to be one of my favourite songs of all time particularly for its instrumental. The boys sound extremely confident, continuing the trend which they showed in ‘MOVE’, which helps keep your attention span on them. The melodies themselves were also quite solid, all the way into the pre-chorus too. It was shaping up nicely for a strong drop.

I am not opposed to beat-drop choruses. I have been a fan of many BLACK PINK and Everglow songs that do this, and I personally believe that when done well, it hits all the right places. Unfortunately, while ‘BONA BONA’ doesn’t necessarily take a conventional approach in its beat-drop chorus, it ends up sacrificing what makes a beat-drop chorus effective in the first place- the immense shift in energy, usually from low to high. Sadly, ‘BONA BONA’ instead chooses to lose some of its momentum by introducing a few bars of toy drum-sounding percussion that is followed up by a half-hearted and weak riff. It feels so half-assed. It makes me so mad. Not only that, the chant ‘born ta born ta born ta love you’ sounds quite awkward already, and I fear it won’t age well in comparison to the likes of ‘Kill This Love’, ‘Ddu Ddu Ddu Ddu’ or ‘How You Like That’. In fact, when strictly speaking of choruses, I even prefer their previous title track ‘I Love You’, even if I am not a big fan of the underwater filter on the general sound for a portion of it, because it at least hits quite hard. This feels half-baked.

The rap verses in the second verse, while well-executed and well-written, don’t do much interesting things in the production aspect. But it is inoffensive. The vocals that emerge after, bringing back the production elements that I love, only frustrates me even more at how the chorus ruins it. Thankfully, the chorus is only fully repeated once, and the song ends with a chant- otherwise, I can’t bear finish the song.

Overall, ‘BONA BONA’ feels like wasted potential, but the rest of the songs in ‘REBOOT’ are quite strong. I will potentially review one or two other songs from the album at the very least to give it the credit it deserves.

Hooks – 6
Production – 8
Vocal Delivery – 9
Rap Delivery – 10
Overall – 8