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ONF Puts a Sci-Fi Twist on Summer Concepts

ONF—who, by now, could probably claim the title as Kings of Feel-Good Music—is making their mark on 2021 with their third release of the year, SUMMER POPUP ALBUM [POPPING]. After their first full-album's reissue in April, I’d anticipated that to be the end of an era—and it very well may be, because title track “Popping” is laden with visual references to past sci-fi music videos and possible foreshadowing for what's yet to come.

Tracklist:

    1. Popping

    2. Summer Poem*

    3. Summer Shape*

    4. Dry Ice

    5. Summer End

*Author’s favorites

“Popping”

The video begins with the boys sitting in a space station’s main area, their attention focused on a projected holographic screen. From here, a couple quick visual and tonal jumps are made: cut to the boys on a decked-out (albeit low-lit) stage in colorful neon outfits with water guns, then to an outdoor setting with the boys in matching outfits where the first verse begins.

This latter image is a pretty typical look, something we can expect to see in a special summer release; it's cute, it's fun, it's warm, we love to see it. It continues for a short while with each of them in summery looks—most notably E-Tion “golfing” and MK focusing a retro camera. Of course there’s a sequence of them all laughing and playing, which all comes together when the lot of them watch the ball E-Tion sent flying approach a forcefield in the air. This is where the summer fun chapter ends.

At the halfway point, we’re brought back to the initial setting of the space station. This features MK and J-US as astronauts about to embark on a mission, while E-Tion and Wyatt show some visible nerves after sending U into a separate part of the station. From here on, the narrative is a little murky; it shows the robots from “Beautiful Beautiful” infiltrating the area where U stands holding what appears to be a detonator, which would make sense given the explosions that follow. There’s MK watching said explosion, meanwhile J-US stands atop a snowy mountain elsewhere. Hyojin watches from the main room as another spacecraft is impacted by a missile of sorts, but only until one comes for him as well.

The aftermath shows the station on fire and everyone left on the floor, with only Hyojin still conscious enough to watch another version of himself (looking sharp in all-black with lip rings—eyes emoji) enter the room. The video ends on the note of J-US discovering a box containing the camera that MK had earlier on, standing in front of what we can only assume is the fallen spacecraft.

Now, with respect to the previous mentions of tone shifts in the video, the song itself is consistent! Its Korean title “여름 쏙” translates to “summer time” in English, and that pretty much covers it. It's an overwhelmingly optimistic summer bop that includes several mentions of the season, a catchy chorus, and production featuring kicky synth backing that can only be described as uniquely ONF. It’s an almost mismatched sentiment given the dark nature that composes over half of the video, but that only makes for a more interesting experience as far as I’m concerned.

SUMMER POPUP ALBUM [POPPING]

The album features five tracks, and it is truly a summertime treat—seriously, three of the five have “summer” in the title. “Summer Poem” has a similarly happy tone as “Popping,” though a bit more funky with its bassline and guitar backing. “Summer Shape” offers a reprieve from the upbeat nature of the album thus far with a piano melody and the boys’ soft vocals, building into a marvelous slow jazz number. “Dry Ice” picks it back up with the synth production (for which we can, and should, thank producer Hwang Hyun) for this electronic hip-hop track. The album wraps up with “Summer End,” and it does so on an appropriately easy-listening note. “Popping” may actually be my personal least favorite on the album, so if the music video hooks you, the rest of it is absolutely worth your time.

“Popping” Title Score: 8/10

Music Video Score: 9/10

SUMMER POPUP ALBUM [POPPING] Album Score: 10/10

TOTAL SCORE: 9.5/10