Over the past three years, BLACKPINK has exponentially grown their fanbase. They now have over 40 million subscribers on YouTube, and I remember that number being way lower. I’m not an avid K-Pop listener (at least not right now), but I have known about BLACKPINK even before they became incredibly popular. So whatever I’m about to say about their new song, “How You Like That”, you can trust that my review is truly going to be honest.
Pre-thoughts: I see that the video already has a ton of views in just a short amount of time. That’s impressive, but they did the same thing with their past two songs. And honestly, I’m surprised “Kill This Love” and “DUU-DU-DUU-DU” don’t have a lot more views. At the rate they were gaining so many views, you would think that both of those songs would have passed the 2-3 billion mark. But they have not done so as of now. The latter is only at around 1.2 billion views after 2 years, while the former hasn’t even cracked a billion views yet. “How You Like That” broke viewership records, which is impressive, but it may face the same fate as the other two. It gained 87 million views in a day, but still at only around 312 million views after three weeks as of the writing of this article. The average is still highly impressive, but again, it just comes to prove that intense hype can dissolve just as fast as it fizzled. Then again, their tours sell really well. So with that, they’re really successful. This pre-thoughts section does not affect the rating of the song, but anyways, onto my take of it.
The Good: The intro reminded me of “Kill This Love”. With that, I thought I was in for a treat. The girls add their own flair to the song, and I like Lisa’s rapping voice. Jennie is also memorable in every song, but that’s really where all the positives end.
The Bad: In all honesty, I barely felt this song at all. “DUU-DU-DUU-DU” and “Kill This Love” are actual dance-worthy songs. “How You Like That”, however, is something different. I love upbeat songs, but it sounds so generic, and the lyrics don’t do it any justice. BLACKPINK’s overall lyricism is lazy, but this might possibly take the cake. That’s not to say every good song has to have meaningful lyrics, but you have some songs with lyrics that don’t add up. And even if they don’t add up, at least they can have a good beat. Unfortunately, I can’t say that for this song, which brings me to my next part: the ugly.
The Ugly: “How You Like That” sounds like other commercialized K-Pop songs. While I like BLACKPINK, this song is very forgettable. That may be why the number of views per day are dropping. Then again, tours are what really ring in cash at the end of the day, and you have to give them credit for that. Even so, if they continue to make songs like this, I may stop checking for them at all. I’m certainly not here for them breaking records at the expense of quality songs.
Final Verdict: As you can tell, this review is not truly in favor of BLACKPINK, and I’m sure some Blinks (their fans) will come at me. I don’t dislike them, but I really don’t like this song either. Yep, that’s my opinion, and I said what I said. How you like THAT?
