Song Review:: Jennie (BLACKPINK): Ruby- Love Hangover {Pre-Release}

• Release date: 2025 March 07

• Album tracklist: Intro : JANE with FKJ, like JENNIE, start a war, Handlebars (feat. Dua Lipa), with the IE (way up), ExtraL (feat. Doechii), Mantra, Love Hangover (feat. Dominic Fike), ZEN, Damn Right, F.T.S, Filter, Seoul City, Starlight, twin

• Album runtime: 40 minutes

 I wasn't going to just because of how swamped I am, but Jennie got a win on a music show, and so I must review this to follow my pattern. So this is the second pre-release from this album, which comes out in about a week from time of posting this. My apologies that I didn't do this one already. Timing was bad. 

It takes a full thirty seconds for the instrumentals to do something more than a drum set with a heavy emphasis on the cymbals. At least the song is three minutes long, so those thirty seconds only take up about a sixth of the total time. But generally, the instrumentals feel a little bit too much like they're stuck in the same band of sound or type of instruments being used, or they're absent, which creates a very minimalistic underpinning to the vocals, something I appreciate. It's hard to overpower vocals, which is the point of listening to songs with words, when there isn't much to overpower them.

Two things right off the bat. First, all English track, which isn't a surprise given her background. With that little E next to the title of the song, I wanted to skim and see which version of explicit it'll be, and had a moment of a raised eyebrow at all the English. Second, this would be rated R if it were a movie for the language. You can get away with one, but two requires an R. So that's where we're at. The amount of repetition in this song with the lyrics wouldn't be a problem if there was more variation in how the words were sung. It's catchy, but overstays its welcome quickly. Of course, to be fair, the theme of the lyrics as well grates against my sensibilities a little more than I'd like, so there would have to be something about the song that makes my brain happy in order for me to like it more than I do, and I'm not feeling it, which is a shame. Still, this is a song that you feel, so I imagine that for those of you who do feel the song, it's great. However, the slow roll of the vocals, both singing and rap, is singularly lovely. They match incredibly well.

Oh, this is a glorious music video. Oh my gosh. This might be my favorite music video I've seen so far this year. Sorry, BSS. And sorry, ZEN because wow. I briefly thought that he might have been trying to kill her but she kept surviving, but the insect Godzilla disavowed me of that notion. She's either some sort of immortal fae that thinks it's funny to mess with people, or she's some sort of an eldritch being who, again, thinks it's funny to mess with people. In both cases, I also think she might be incredibly unlucky. Or, it's a time loop and only those two can remember it. Or some combination thereof.