Cube made a brave decision by making this sub-unit. Was it worth it?
Picture yourself in the shoes of Cube Entertianment’s CEO: Your most successful girl group disbands, and out of the five members, the member who is more successful than her group stays with your company. Meanwhile, one of the members of your most successful boy group leaves the band, but stays with your company anyway. Months later, the said boy group leaves your company. Not only do you still have the girl from one group and the guy from the other, but those two people already had an established duo act together.
You’re a CEO, so you must like making money! And you really could use some money. You give some comebacks to your now oldest group and your rookie boy group. The older group gets some attention in the spring comeback, but your ex-group shows up and reminds you it’s not enough. You turn your remaining girl group into the ex-girl group, and it gets them attention as well, but it’s still not enough. What if you get those two ex-members together again after four years of nothing? Maybe that will regain the public’s trust in your management!
That would be the most sensible thing to do, but apparently the bosses at Cube don’t agree. Instead, they decided to put the more successful and less controversial ex-member in a unit with two guys from Pentagon, their newest boy group that hasn’t gotten that popular so far.
Turns out, this was bad in theory, quite good in practice.
Everyone’s comparing the song to Bruno Mars. The only similarities I can see are the fact it’s a retro song, lots of shouting in the chorus, and the fact they spell out the word ‘fresh’. The way the spell it is more chill when compared to the non-stop hollering in Bruno’s songs. The song itself is very chill in fact, and the music actually sounds like a proper song, whereas 24FunK are too busy being loud and party bangers. 365 Fresh keeps it simple, and it’s damn good where it is.
Then there’s the video. Over at Cube, they must think any publicity is good publicity. I wasn’t around for the past Troublemaker comebacks, but from what I’ve heard, the reaction Triple H is getting isn’t too different from Troublemaker’s in the past. The fact Hyuna is in this is a big reason why people are caring so much. Cross Gene’s Black or White was far more violent and very not appropriate for younger kids. But they’re just nugus. No one cares as long as they aren’t touching themselves or pelvic thrusting.
I thought the story was cool, very Tarantino-esque obviously. I even rewinded the video at the trunk part to make sure they were recreating the trunk shot. Another complaint 365 Fresh has received is the song doesn’t match the video. First off, be quiet. Second, that’s what also makes this more Tarantino-esque. Does Stuck in the Middle with You fit a scene involving someone getting his ear cut off? I like my movies to have a good storyline and I’m not against blood and violence being included, so 365 Fresh is fine by me.
Something else the video did was make it easier for me to pick E’Dawn as my Pentagon bias. It hasn’t been easy picking one. In the MV for Gorilla, Hui, Yan An and Wooseok suffered the least from those bowl haircuts, and everyone else looked ghastly in them. Then a little video showing what they look outside of music video cinematography forced me to reconsider. Several weeks later, Can You Feel It was released and at that point I kept my eyes on E’Dawn and the ’98 line, and some other guys too but mostly E’Dawn and Yuto.
Flash forward to Triple H season. I didn’t think it would mean too much to have E’Dawn in the unit. I was actually hoping it would make Hui more handsome, like he was in the Gorilla MV. But man oh man.
He’s like a cross between Hyunseung and Junhyung; A Hyunseung that eats, and a version of Junhyung that isn’t that average-looking. I still don’t think it’s fair to the other Pentagon members that E’Dawn has redeemed himself from his horrid styling during their debut. I’ll give them one more comeback to see if E’Dawn can be dethroned.
Overall, this unit was a lot better than what many expected. The controversial bits will get them in the news which is good news for Cube. It’s very certain Troublemaker is a finished project and Hyunseung will have to fend for himself, unless B3AST becomes legit. And of course, the song is pretty solid. It’s been in my head ever since I heard it, and it should stay there for a few days longer. I give it 365 days of the year out of 366.
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