Girls’ Generation
Holiday Night
SM Entertainment
Any Sone, as dedicated fans of Girls’ Generation are known, will tell you that the K-pop girl group is made of the stuff of legends.
Perhaps there’s more to that statement than mere fanatical biased opinion. After all, Girls’ Generation has always been credited for paving the way for many girl groups in the relatively boy group-centric K-pop universe.
The maddeningly catchy Gee is still widely regarded as one of the genre’s most iconic numbers, and the song I Got A Boy made history when it won Video of The Year at the first YouTube Music Awards in 2013.
Holiday Night, the eight member outfit’s sixth Korean album, comes ten years after the release of the group’s anthemic debut song Into The New World and two years after their last and fifth studio album Lion Heart.
If anything, the 10-track collection plays more like a special commemorative record instead of one that seeks to create new hallmarks.
The girls – Taeyeon, Sunny, Tiffany, Hyoyeon, Yuri, Sooyoung, Yoona, and Seohyun – deserve as much. After all, most girl groups in South Korea barely make it past their seventh year.
That observation is most telling in the sonic stylings of the album’s dual singles – Holiday and All Night. The overtly cutesy Holiday relies on a super saccharine chorus (“Ho-ho-holiday!”) to deliver the punch, while the sexier All Night has that 1980s disco vibe to it.
You won’t find any flavour-of-the-moment sounds here, only retro-tinged party songs and ballads. And as far as B-sides go, Holiday Night doesn’t disappoint.
Opening get-the-groove-on track Girls Are Back features solid vocals, setting aside the fact that SNSD (as the group is also known among K-pop listeners) is back and ready to party over solid vocals. Meanwhile, slower jams like Only One and One Last Time, prove that Girls’ Generation can do substance just as well as superfluous.
Sweet Talk (co-penned by maknae Seohyun) on the other hand, teases further on Girls’ Generation’s sassier hip hop image along the vein of past hits like You Think and Run Devil Run. Elsewhere, It’s You (with lyrics by member Yuri) and closing number Light Up The Sky are triumphant celebrations of the group’s longevity.
