It’s 2/2 folks, one of the 12 days of the year where Brits and Yanks write the date the same way. Rejoice, tis a rare and blessed opportunity. I’ve always had a liking for these types of days, not least because both me (11/11) and my sister (4/4) managed to be born on one. Hit me up if you are also part of this weirdly specific club. We can make badges.
Anyhoo, it’s Day 2 of my over-ambitious K-pop project, and today we are on to Weki Meki. If you know nothing about K-pop, and mayhaps stereotype it as a genre of nonsense sugary bubble-gum pop, the name of this group is not going to discourage you from your ideas (it’s pronounced as Wiki- Mickey, if that helps). Is this a fair assumption? I mean, no, obviously not, but let’s explore anyway…
Who are Weki Meki?
They are an eight-member girl group, formed in 2017 under the Fantagio music company, who I have honestly have never heard of (company, not group). This leads me to believe that the company is pretty small, though it’s worth noting that four of the group’s members competed in the popular Korean music talent show/survival competition Produce 101, and that 2, Yoo-jung and Do-yeon, actually debuted in the show’s resulting girl group, IOI. Think Girls Aloud if you’re from the UK, and if you aren’t…well, Google Girls Aloud. Basically, this means that this group had members already experienced in girl group activities, which is an interesting place to start from. I couldn’t find much to define what their sound might be, though apparently the name represents each girl holding the ‘key’ to their identity (My + key > Meki) and simultaneously working together to form a group identity (We + key > Weki). This may sound mind-bending, and to be fair it is, but welcome to K-pop logic.
The First Song
Weki Meki’s first single is 2017’s I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend. I won’t lie to you, I am already in favour of a song that takes such a delightfully petty stance, and the song in its entirety very much picks up this theme and runs with it. The central idea is that the singer is close to a guy who has a girlfriend, but said singer is taking great pains to point out to this guy that she is much closer to him, and thus, said girlfriend is not relevant. The tone of the song is solidly upbeat and, yes, dare I say it, bubble-gum, though I do enjoy the melody of the synths in the chorus. We are definitely not in full Avril Lavigne ‘bad girl’ territory here (purely in the context of songs about not liking girlfriends, calm down), but I can imagine really latching onto this song if I myself was young and youthful and in a place to make sassy comments about other people’s partners. But I’m nearly 30, and at this age it’s honestly more likely you won’t like your friends’ boyfriends for not being good enough. Being old is fun.
Five of the Big Hits
Weki Meki haven’t actually had a huge number of singles released, given that they debuted just over three years ago. So in picking Crush, Oopsy, Dazzle Dazzle, Tika Taka and Picky Picky in addition to their latest and earliest singles, I have almost covered everything. The only other Korean single release I could find was a Christmas song called All I Want in collaboration with groups Astro and Hello Venus. Yes, I did watch this video, but honestly, I was so pleased by the faux-wintery red and white aesthetic in the outfits (my GOD the jumpers) that I didn’t really listen to the song much.
The singles that they have produced rely on a high energy concept that I’ve always preferred in K-pop music. Crush is particularly good fun, with a high tempo rhythm and a chorus peppy enough to rival any JYP super group. Picky Picky also worked well for me, providing a through-line from the petty concept of I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend to a girl who is now incredibly choosy about what she wants from a guy. The refrain of “Like it/Don’t like it/Love it/Don’t want it/Weki/Meki/I’m so/Picky” is iconic, and something I feel could end up as a song in a Tik Tok challenge, if I knew the first thing about Tik Tok. Even Oopsy, with a name that reads very differently in the English-speaking world (I associate it mostly as a euphemistic word for a child soiling themselves), is hopelessly catchy. Comparing the group to GFriend, my discovery from yesterday, there is definitely a less distinctive style in both the music and the videos. The latter of these are all cool, but fall pretty squarely into a specific mould of K-pop girl group styling. I want to say it’s ‘girl crush’ or ‘cool girl’, but that would imply I know what I’m talking about. Basically it’s not cutesy and it’s not emo. Make of that what you will. There is also a little bit of rapping here occasionally, but the style does ultimately read as pretty standard for late 2010s/2020s K-pop.
The Latest Song
The most recent release of Weki Meki is October 2020’s Cool. The attitude here has been turned up higher than any of the other releases that I’ve listened to. It’s definitely not a wild departure from anything that they have done before, but Cool feels confident, and earns its sing-shouty chorus in a song underlined by a strong pulsing electro beat. It may even be my favourite of the songs I’ve listened to by them, along with the similarly ‘edgy’ Crush.
The Latest Album
As is standard in K-pop releases, Weki Meki don’t appear to have any ‘full-length’ albums in the Western sense of 10 + songs. So I plumped for their latest ‘extended play’, New Rules, which is effectively deluxe release of Cool with three B-side tracks (C and D sides? I don’t know) and an additional English version of the title track. If I am honest, none of these non-single songs left any real impression on me: they are slower paced pieces with a far more generic sound. Here is where I feel my lacking in Korean may really hurt my perspective. For all I know, these songs contain multiple subtleties that I won’t get from not reading translations. I will leave this to a ‘benefit of the doubt’ judgement here, as there is certainly nothing wrong with these songs. There just isn’t anything entertaining either.
Thoughts?
Ultimately, I really enjoyed Weki Meki’s singles, though I wasn’t inspired by any of their album tracks I’ve heard. Of course, I haven’t heard them all, and thus I may well be missing a hidden gem, but I’m not driven to listen to any more. The feeling behind songs like Cool, Crush,and Picky Picky is one that I can really get behind. I feel like I will soon be jumping around them in my room whilst slightly tipsy in the coming weeks, and I also believe the girls would support me in this decision. Their style isn’t is defined or strong as GFriend’s, but that’s not necessarily an issue. When it’s this much fun, I’m really not that bothered. Guess I’m not that…….Picky.
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