Song Review:: A.C.E: PINATA- PINATA

• Release date: 2024 November 20

• Album tracklist: Intro: Recuerda, Recuerda; PINATA; PINATA - English version; PINATA (Inst.)

• Album runtime: 3 minutes

 I have been waiting for this for a while. Will I ever shut up about their voices? No. And in fact I went down an A.C.E rabbit hole last night because my Choice friend sent me a reel of one of them doing a Beautiful Things cover and didn't emerge for almost an hour even though I was supposed to be doing a review. Not that I was having a hard time with the review. I'm just always happy to listen to them and will easily get distracted by their. Also, the concept photos for this single? Wow. I'm not just saying that because that's one of their names. And I fully have to plug Intro because, again, I'm not saying he specifically needs to be mentioned, but wow. Their dancing is incredible. Top tier. 

My Choice friend also requested Savage be covered as a GH post, so expect that by the end of the week.

Piñata goes so hard. The instrumentals for the song do not let the song breathe at any point, because it's just intensity the entire way through. Even the rests built into the song are intensely silent, like the song itself is pointedly and unblinkingly staring at you during those beats of silence, some of which stare at you while the vocalists are doing their glorious thing. This is a "grab you by the throat and hold you hostage" kind of song. There are what sounds like alarm sound effects, and I'm almost positive there's a stringed instrument being played at a very high pitch to create a very unsettling effect.

"It's the boys. We back, baby." I love introductions like this. They're ridiculous, but I'm not going to complain because the group survived the seven year curse, which gives them street cred, as far as I'm concerned. As much as I'm not a particular fan of the shouting, nor am I overly fond of the English in spots, why is it also as catchy as it is? Why? How does the song combine elements that I don't normally like and instead of making me not like those elements more, makes me instead like them? I don't know. Either way, yes, this is going into a regular listening playlist, and also, my work playlist, because I have a feeling that it will be a good audible expression of the rage I feel at work sometimes, but cannot express myself. I also listen to a lot of Stray Kids, ATEEZ, and NCT at work. And now I'm going to talk about those vocals, because as amazing and charismatic as the members are, they also have some of the best voices I've ever heard in person, and their songs let them flex that even though, like with this case, it's a very intense song and would be understandable to let the shouting, as well as the rapping, take over. The ad-libs, by contrast, take over roughly the last quarter to a third of the song, dominating the soundscape as the other members keep up the intensity with the lower notes. And just before the bridge, I could swear that's a five part harmony, but the most a group usually gets is a three part, maybe four part if it's a big group. A five part harmony would be all five of them, which they can do because they all have the voices for that, but it's unlikely. So, I'm going to go find a live performance really fast. 

So I did that. And the sneak preview of what I'm going to see in the music video is one of those things that I'm not sure I'm ready for as a person. I think I was right about that harmony; I think it may actually be a five part harmony, which is a little mind-boggling. If I were a grading scale kind of reviewer, that harmony alone would off-set just about any other cons I have for the song, as long as the rest of the song wasn't a steaming pile of hot garbage, which it isn't. That last chorus, though. If I could isolate that last chorus, I would have that be a ringtone in this day and age. It wouldn't even be a personalized ring tone for someone. No, this would be my general ringtone and take the place of...I think it's still A Story Told from the musical The Count of Monte Cristo, which I think I made my ringtone back in 2015. Maybe. It might have been 2014. So, years before this group even debuted, that has been my ringtone and for the first time in about a decade, I am tempted to change it. Absolute sorcery.

I had to pause the music video about a minute or so in. What in the thirst trap is this? I've never been more glad that I don't do video reviews because this would have been three minutes of me sitting silently with my head in my hands while I process what is going on and steel myself for what the natural progression would be. San from ATEEZ would fit right into this group. I think I ended up having to pause it about six times just to process it. Okay. The only way I'm going to be able to make this a coherent section of the review is if I don't talk about certain parts of it in detail and only mention it. The choreography features body rolls. There is dripped candle wax (although I sincerely doubt that it is actual candle wax, hopefully it isn't). The members lose clothing over the course of the video. I feel like a Victorian man being shown an ankle, or a table leg. It's all fine. Okay. There. I've mentioned it. It's out of the way. I can move on. The use of the back-up dancers in the choreography is really similar to Super by Seventeen, although the style is different. It's absolutely mesmerizing, particularly because they're in all black and the members wear a a lot more white, and sometimes some red, which helps them to stand out. This functions more as a performance video with some thirst trap elements to it, but it's very clean and as intense as the music is.