Song Review:: aespa: Rich Man- Rich Man

• Release date: 2025 September 05

• Album tracklist: Rich Man, Drift, Bubble, Count On Me, Angel #48, To The Girls

• Album runtime: 19 minutes

 So, while I haven't heard the song yet, mostly by deliberately shoving my head under a rock, I did read some thoughts on it and some of aespa's other recent songs over on Tumblr. The post was well-written, which I appreciate, and brought in examples of effective use of some of SM's shared universe elements, which I recently discovered existed because of a user on Reddit, and why they were more effective with certain groups over others. I didn't read the post too well because I hadn't reviewed the song yet and didn't want those thoughts to influence mine. I will admit though that it has already been categorized a little bit in my head, though luckily I'm not that familiar with their discography to be intimately knowledgeable on all the songs that the post discussed, so most of it kind of went over my head. Good news is the average is more than three minutes, as is the title track itself.

There's not a ton of variation in the instrumental for this track, although I will say that it is a hard, but not heavy, stalk of an instrumental. There's once again a little bit of a bite that would fit really well with something dystopian or apocalyptic, which fits with the limited amount I know about aespa title tracks, but also those are almost entirely the recent once 2023 or newer. It's really an unrelenting sort of instrumental. The only time when it slows down, we get hip-hop sirens and then a shredded electric guitar, neither of which actually allow the song to rest at all. The intensity and consistency is going to make for a good workout song, if you're in the market for another one.

I cannot stand the repetition of "I am a rich man". Do you know that they repeat the phrase "I am a rich man" more than thirty times in the song? If I did the math correctly, I think it works out to that phrase averaging out to once every 5.6 seconds it's said. It would be different if it was said differently each time, or at least having more than a single way that it's repeated, but no. It's the same every time. And if it has subtle nuances, those nuances need to be stronger, and the producer(s) need to rewatch the Dormammu scene from Dr. Strange, because that's a masterclass in having the same line repeated but actually doing something with that line. Now that that's out of the way, other than that part of the song, I could actually really enjoy it. The rapping is in a good location for the song's rhythm, and with the exception of the line I dislike, I do kind of like what's going on with their voices. I wish there was more going on with their voices, but for a song I am unlikely to return to because of the thirty-five (35) times a single line is repeated almost like the producers just had them record the line once and then copied and pasted it, I will take anything I like about a song and hold onto it. 

Loving the music video, actually. It does have shades of Dirty Work pushed one or two steps further, and if I liked the song, I'd really, really love the music video because it's just about everything I want, although to be fair, I could do without some of the weird and obvious CGI. But, otherwise, I enjoyed it. Was the whole thing kind of weird? Yes. Did it also seem like it was taking itself too seriously for how weird it was? Also, yes. But at least there's a storyline and the music video tried to do something, and in that regard, I'm quite easily pleased.

And also, there were a couple of other songs from the album that I enjoyed. Did I go looking for songs I liked to try to balance out how I feel about the title track? Unfortunately, but it did also work a little. Bubble was good. Count On Me was good. The one I liked the best was To The Girls. That's such a concert jam of a song, or a solid contender for someone's go-to karaoke song.