K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM released its fourth extended play, “CRAZY,” on Aug. 30 under HYBE Entertainment. Released on the tail end of a long string of criticism and bad publicity following the group’s subpar set at Coachella 2024, “CRAZY” was an opportunity for the group to re-establish its previous prowess.
To its credit, the five-track EP hones in on a more specific concept than most other K-pop releases manage to. The first songs are especially enriched by their foundations in drag culture and electronic club music.
“All of the girls are girling, girling,” member HUH YUNJIN sings in the EP’s eponymous title track. “CRAZY” is certainly the most impressive on the tracklist, an interesting and effective intersection of Western and K-pop cultures. Backed by a funky electronic beat, the title track brims with energy, relying on instrumentals, rap and spoken-word lines more than traditional vocals. The most striking part of “CRAZY,” however, is the visuals it accompanies.
Surrealist elements make the “CRAZY” music video a delightful, refreshing watch: Dancers with lampshades as heads shuffle laterally, video clips glitch in retrograde and rows of performers in towel robes dance from underneath miniature satellite dishes. While K-pop girl group choreography is largely characterized by lithe lines, soft expressions and isolated and delicate movements, LE SSERAFIM takes a commendable risk with “CRAZY’s” Western-style choreography, embellished with sections of voguing and featuring dancers from the House of Juicy Couture.
Unfortunately, the title track marks the end of “CRAZY’s” musical success. The remaining B-sides, though eclectic, offer nothing exceptional. “Chasing Lighting,” like all of LE SSERAFIM’s introduction tracks, is trilingual and solely spoken. However, its lyricism soon becomes engulfed by its EDM-based instrumental and veers into unintelligibility, with members rapping lines such as “I miss my dog so much” and “I keep craving Greek yogurt / I swear I could live off it for the rest of my life.” The hip-hop-based “Pierrot,” sampling Kim Wan Sun’s 1990 hit “Pierrot Laughs at Us,” and pop track “1-800-hot-n-fun” follow, both tracks lively and agreeable but neither one innovative to any extent.
The final track, “Crazier,” is actually nothing of the sort, but rather a slow, trudging ballad. Entirely out of place, the switch from the previous tracks’ rolling beats to “Crazier’s” sluggishness screeches any momentum the album had garnered to a lurching halt. LE SSERAFIM’s commitment to the inclusion of diverse genres is in some cases worthy of appreciation, but in this case, works against the album and shatters its cohesion.
The biggest disappointment of LE SSERAFIM’s latest EP is undoubtedly its sheer forgettability. “CRAZY’s” promotion photoshoots promised everything weird, eccentric, colorful, whimsical and crazy. Catering to an industry characterized by sameness and agreeability, however, caught LE SSERAFIM in an unfortunate balance — being strange enough to confuse the masses but too generic to evade irrelevance.
LE SSERAFIM, a scramble of the words “I’m fearless,” has built a career on being unafraid and unapologetic, breaking the mold in every release. Unfortunately, “CRAZY’s” title is proven to be only crazy misleading — the EP’s lackluster execution is dwarfed by its potential.
3/5
