Song Review:: Nowadays: Nowhere- Why Not?

- September 04, 2024

Release date: 2024 August 27
Album tracklist: Why Not?, Heart vs Head, Troublesome
Album runtime: 9 minutes

Once again, I am left with an annoyed feeling that I just do not like the title track nearly as well as I do B-sides for Nowadays. But, and this is why I usually leave songs on repeat for some time so I can decide how much I actually like a song, repeated listening has changed it. First impressions of Why Not? were not favorable for the song, because I was listening to it in context of the other two songs, both of which I really enjoy and were instantly added to my regular listening playlist, much like Ticket and Rainy Day before them. And I didn't like Why Not? as well. I still don't, but isolated listening has softened the annoyance somewhat. Which bodes well for it. I'm not sure how well the song will age, because it does sound incredibly fifth gen and I'm really not a fan of the shouting, but at least I don't think there's actually as much shouting as I think there is because the rap sections seem to be placed close to the shouting, so it feels like the shouting is longer. It just took me some listening to separate the two.

I deeply love the jazzy brass, and I think that's why I'm softening like I am for the song. It's quirky. Do I think more of the song could benefit from not taking itself too seriously? Yes. But, on the other hand, the brass doesn't overstay its welcome, which it easily could. Instead, it's at the beginning and then pops back up when it's time for the shouty chorus, something I'm not a fan of, but I do love the brass. The background instrumentals do have auditory indicators to what part of the song we are in, which, because my ears aren't quite as tuned yet for rap, is what helped me clue in to the difference between the rap lines and the shouty lines, but they also don't breathe with the song. There are clear differences between the different sections of instrumentals, but they also don't have a lot of variation within the sections. Verse 1 has basically the same background instrumentals as Verse 2, etc. It would be nice if we had some fluctuations, but it isn't what we have. We have instrumentals that, instead, I could use during my D&D games because of their repetition.

There is something that I really feel I should remark on. The shouty chorus distracts from the fact that this song somehow sounds like a cousin to Tang Tang Tang from the BTOB subunit, 90TAN. I don't know how to feel about the fact that an original debut year of 2012 manages to fit so well with a recent debut, twelve years apart, even if they're originally from the same company. They have the same concept, the same vibes, the same sounds. It's kind of crazy. BTOB isn't even at Cube anymore, and theirs didn't come out long enough ago for Cube to copy it (not that I think they would have), so unless someone blabbed at some point, this is a case of hilarious convergent evolution that demonstrates their ancestry ( I know that convergent evolution is technically the butterfly wings and bat wings thing, but because they probably came up with the ideas independently of each other, I chose that one. Unless they're both inspired by Hui, which is possible). I see some of Hui's Hmmm Bop as well in the goofiness, something I think K-Pop should have more of. But I can hear echoes of Minhyuk in one of the rappers, which is a high compliment. I'm not necessarily sure that any of them have the same chops as the BTOB vocalists, but I'm also not sure that Cube is giving them the chance to really stretch out vocally in favor of those shouty choruses. This is what I'm talking about, though. Being able to track and follow shared characteristics between groups even if they have a decade or more apart in debut dates. So much fun.

Speaking of fun, how about that opening? It feels like a callback to that one Soobin meme from 2021. I love it. It's just so goofy! And I have to say that I deeply appreciate that there are vocal adlibs happening during that last chorus. We have the evidence that they've got good vocals because of their Rainy Day cover, but that little inclusion is really the only thing keeping Nowadays from sounding like most other fifth gen boy groups. They need to flex the Cube voices I assume they have.

Also, I love the music video for the same reason that I love Tang Tang Tang and also Hmmm Bop (and even Tonight (With Melody) to some extent). They're all just fun and on the unserious side. Not that there's anything wrong with being serious, but in a glutted market of serious songs, an unserious track separates a group from the others. I hope they extend further in that direction and move away from the shouting more.