Track Analysis: (G)I-DLE – Hwaa

WARNING: VERY LARGE POST AHEAD. The girl groups are starting off 2020 with a big comeback, since I think it’s safe to say (G)I-DLE are one of the biggest girl groups in K-pop at the moment – most definitely in the west. For myself, however, I just haven’t really clicked with any of their releases. Last years ‘Oh My God’ had a minimalistic, cathedral-esque sound design that unfortunately wore off very quickly on me due to the empty chorus, and ‘Dumdi Dumdi’ had it’s charms as being a fun listen but got stale quick due to the usage of only one note in the chorus. Looking back at this, it is clear that (G)I-DLE’s choruses and hooks are the main culprit of why I haven’t been reeled in so far. With new release ‘Hwaa’, the direction is completely different. Focusing on a much more solemn and melancholic composition, it doesn’t necessarily have much ‘oomph’, but instead is a very emotional track that is jam-packed with interesting sound design.

Starting off with the intro, the scene is set straight away with the instrumentation conveying a sense of pensiveness, melancholy and longing through the use of an instrument that reminds me of the pipa. It does this mainly due to the fact that each chord take up a whole bar (which is commonly used to induce emotion), and linearly scales up in volume which makes the effect of the instrument more powerful. I have to say as well, this is my favourite instrumentation choice in the recent past when it comes to achieving the sole purpose of setting a specific atmosphere. I can imagine mountains and cherry blossoms in the winter, and the fact that the composition alone can make me mentally visualise an image is quite impressive. The first verse remains very solemn due to the delivery of the topline, while a background violin provides the tenuto chords to keep the track emotional and pensive. A simple percussion pattern is layered on top simply to provide a beat for listeners to keep engaged with the song. The second half of the verse sees the percussion take a step up which indicates the nature of the track will become slightly more dynamic. This is partnered with the topline through the use of more charisma and ad-libs. Personally, I love the vocals here because of how they flow so well with the instrumental and atmosphere of the track. Overall, this is an outstanding first verse.

The pre-chorus sees the composition take a major step back to the pensive and melancholic atmosphere of the introduction, which is quite common since it allows for a buildup and culmination into the chorus. In this case, I don’t think the track loses any momentum because momentum is surprisingly not the aim of this form of production. For tracks that emit a sense of longing or reflectiveness, it’s the high high’s and the low low’s which allow the listener to relate to the feeling manifested by the track itself, therefore I love how this pre-chorus starts by stepping back completely. There aren’t too many interesting production choices used, but the ultilisation of a 4-2-1-1 buildup allows for the percussion to control the tempo of the track while an electronic riser culminates into the chorus. Once again, I think the vocals here are perfect for what the track aims to achieve. Even though they aren’t necessarily too special on their own, they fit with the instrumental extremely well.

The chorus is definitely one that I personally feel will divide opinion, and while I don’t think it’s as strong as it could’ve been, I also don’t think it’s necessarily weak. Obviously, the main talking point is that the topline is simply just a melodic element with some ad-libs keeping it interesting. In probably any other K-pop girl group title track composition I’ve heard in the last two years, I’d say that it’s poor – however – the pure emotion that is being conveyed by the instrumental in my opinion means the ‘melodic screaming’ of the topline makes sense. With this track, I feel it is of upmost importance to remember that the aim is to emit a sense of longing, reflectiveness and melancholy. In life, when you may regret something or just be confused on what to do – sometimes you scream. The production here therefore uses the topline as a form of audio imagery to continue building atmosphere, while turning that into a choir-like performance to fit the beauty of instrumental. In a way, it’s sort of like a double entendre, where there are multiple meanings. With all this being said, I still think the instrumental and topline is missing that final piece of the puzzle which would really push the chorus towards being euphoric. The instrumental keeps the percussion layered with a tenuto synth on the first note of each bar which is quite minimalistic. As I stated before, it is important that tracks like this really hit their high high’s, and with the topline not really producing any dynamic shift, I think that reintroducing the violin as a prominent instrument in the composition would give the chorus that final push towards sounding cinematic. At the moment, it’s definitely a beautiful piece, but the lack of a true culmination along with a stagnant use of instrumentation makes the track hard to remember. This is the main problem I end up having with most (G)I-DLE choruses – there is a real quality basis, but it doesn’t feel 100% finished.

It’s around here where things start to go slightly downhill for me. The second verse is moombahton rap, and my opinion is that the verse and the rap on its own is really good – the problem stems with that it feels disjointed to the rest of the track. Moombahton is a genre that I personally like, thanks to the amount of gritty EDM that I listen to, and the production here actually uses it quite well to fit the flow of the rap but also continue to emit a strong emotional presence. As for the rap, I think Soyeon probably has one of the best flows out of everyone in the industry and she shows it here. The transition between having an orchestral section going into a moombahton section is really tricky in all fairness, but I think there are definitely ways to make it work. One of the best ways I can think of is to keep a key part of the orchestral section as part of the background instrumentation when flipping genres. For example, instead of using a completely different bassline for the moombahton verse, by continuing on with the bassline of the chorus into the verse, the two sections will be slightly more harmonised rather than sound disjointed. The best way to put it is that there should be a main melody through the track, rather than have too many parts shifting around. One of my favourite EDM tracks that conjoins multiple different genres (including orchestral) is Takeoff by Umbra. If you listen to it, you’ll see how there is a main melody that plays throughout each genre, but instead it is distorted, slowed or sped up each time to fit the specific genre at the time. This major aspect to weld the sections of ‘Hwaa’ together is something I believe it misses greatly, even though both parts are great on their own.

Going into the second chorus, I will have to admit that I’m also slightly more disappointed than usual that the choruses of ‘Hwaa’ don’t seem to massively build up as the song progresses. This is because a production like ‘Hwaa’ relies on a constant build of emotion to keep a listener involved. The second chorus of ‘Hwaa’ sees it include the melody from the instrument during the intro in slight amounts, which is sort of what I would’ve liked to hear in the first chorus but even more amplified. In my opinion, when you have a very orchestral chorus, it needs to continue to build over the course of the track. This is normally done by adding more to the instrumentation or the topline. If not much changes, the atmosphere of the track starts to stagnate rather than continuously build, making the final climax quite weak. Although there were some slight additions here, I don’t think it was enough. Along with what I spoke about for the first chorus, I would’ve liked to hear another instrument take a lead role (a piano maybe?). Some layered choir-like vocals behind the topline could also have added more to the chorus.

The bridge doesn’t take as much as a step back as I would’ve expected initially, rather it is 8 bars of what I sort of expected a second verse to be. This section definitely flows better out of the chorus, but doesn’t really add anything incredible. The guitar pluck is a nice addition to the instrumental and the high note at the end is solid, but the bridge clearly wasn’t building to anything. Even though it’s not memorable, in terms of track arrangement, it’s fine that this section doesn’t build to anything because the transition into the final chorus sees the percussion break for three bars, leaving only the topline and tenuto synth of the chorus. This is the step back that was required to then culminate all the instrumentation into a final outro, and it seems promising with the fourth bar reintroducing the percussion for a quick dynamic one bar buildup. The outro however is quite possibly the most disappointing part of the track though which is a shame. It focuses more on the instrumentation that I spoke about in the second chorus, but also completely drops the topline (aside from an ab-lib) and doesn’t add anything more. This track would shine if all the instrumentation and topline were brought together for a big ‘hurrah’ moment, but the track doesn’t cash in on its climax, instead staying very melancholic until the end. The song also just seems to suddenly end rather than fade off, which is drastically unexpected since the track has a very free-flowing nature. I think a 16-bar final chorus could’ve definitely been implemented. 4-bars of the initial downturn (what the track currently has), followed by 8-bars of complete culmination (violin, guitar, percussion, topline, more), and then the final 4-bars could drop the topline, focus on returning to the sound of the instrumental, and fade away. I think this would’ve helped the longevity and replay value of the track significantly since it would also be more cyclical (the outro can flow into the intro).

Verses	8
Chorus	8
Production	8
Longevity	7
Bias	7.5
Overall Rating	7.75

This track was difficult to rate. I still don’t really know where I stand on most things and I think it’s quite difficult to make a purely objective decision for this type of production.

Overall, although I definitely have some issues with sections of the track, I personally really like compositions that are more delicate and emotional in nature, following this kind of orchestral and cinematic arrangement. That’s why I can see this track splitting opinion, because it doesn’t have a lot of firepower and can feel disjointed at times. I definitely think this is a step in the right direction for (G)I-DLE though in terms of adding more depth to their instrumentals and particularly their choruses. I’m still very interested in seeing (G)I-DLE progress more and more though because I think they definitely have all the pieces, it’s just combining them correctly and then adding that little bit more to really help their discography stand out. As it stands though I think this track could be a grower, but I’m not entirely sure at the moment. I’d love to hear what you thought of ‘Hwaa’, and I hope you have a wonderful day! ^^