LE SSERAFIM was a group that started so strong, having a virtually perfect debut album, and having a strong follow-up in the form of their incredible title-track ‘ANTIFRAGILE’, which was one of my top 10 K-pop songs of 2022. Unfortunately, ‘UNFORGIVEN’ was a letdown, and I’m sad to say- ‘EASY’ is also another slight miss for me.
The melodies are quite forgettable at first listen, but after having listened to the song several times via Youtube shorts edits, the hooks have sunk into my brain. It is somewhat catchy. Somewhat. Yet, ultimately, I don’t feel almost any initiative to play it again. It thought to myself then, the melodies aren’t really the main problem, right?
And so, I kept thinking about what actually prevented me from liking the song. This has prevented me from posting its review earlier, but I think I have finally come to the answer- and it isn’t really a unique one either, an answer likely shared by many other fans who have become more disillusioned with LE SSERAFIM’s music quality in the recent comeback.
The production of ‘EASY’ simply just doesn’t have much substance. It is too wispy. I have criticized NewJeans’ ‘Bubblegum’ for the same reason, but ‘EASY’ is a far greater offender. At least the latter had some interesting elements like the interlude between the first chorus and the second verse which mimicked the sound of popping bubbles. ‘EASY’ doesn’t have any such sections that piqued my interest. In the absence of such a section, what would propel the song’s quality up would be the strength of the foundational aspects, and ‘EASY’ lacks that. In essentially any song, I would expect it to build up to something, or at least deliver the whole vibe convincingly. Yet, the producers made a very questionable choice to lace Sakura and Kazuha’s voices in heavy autotune in the second verse, which gives the exact opposite impression of making everything ‘look easy’ as they claim to sing. Ultimately, the song, more often than not fades into the background upon the occasion that it pops up in my YouTube auto-play.
The vocal delivery isn’t bad. Particularly, Chaewon was particularly convincing. The rest, not as much. Yunjin really needs to fix her bad habits that make her sound much worse than she actually is. I hope she takes some time to improve and regain her previous vocal prowess as she did in Produce 48.
All in all, ‘EASY’ mostly comes across as flat.
Hooks – 8
Production – 6
Vocal Delivery – 8
Overall – 7.5
K-pop Evaluated 
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