Lately, it seems we just can’t get enough of the 2000s. We’re singing “Von Dutch” and bootlegging trucker hats. We’re taking bathroom selfies on digicams. We’re going out in low-rise jeans, yearning for an era of clubbing before smartphones. It’s within this collective flashback that the Deep emerges, decked out in sequined tank tops and Jeremy Scott teddy-bear sneakers. For the South Korean hyperpop singer-songwriter and producer, the mission is to get loud and get down, the good old fashioned way and then some. KPOP B!TCH, the Deep’s debut, evokes the glamour of a naughty-aughties night out: fast car rides, VIP bottle service, dancefloor makeouts, and buzzing phones (one can almost hear the pink Motorola Razr snapping shut). She tells the story using the stock phrases of 2000s club anthems: rock your body, take it off, turn it up. She even tells you to “check my swag.”
Production credits include hyperpop heavy-hitters Dorian Electra, kimj, and atlgrandma, and in a bid to engineer the most unforgettable rager, the party props the door open to all genres: You’ll catch whiffs of 2nd-generation K-pop groups like SNSD and SHINee, early PC Music releases, how i’m feeling now–era Charli XCX, UK garage, and, of course, the requisite 2000s club pop and EDM (an acronym which the Deep creatively reinterprets as “Everyone Deserves a Moment”). The night-out magnetism shines in the zooming highway synths that race through “BEEP BEEP,” a bouncy synth-pop track you can imagine blasting in your Uber to the club; it soars in the helium-toned, Hannah Diamond–esque chorus of “Lucky Star,” and it bumps and grinds in the sultry “Gimme More” bassline of “SOLO.”
The album falters most in its EDM offerings, which tend to land with the queasy feeling of 3 a.m. Jack in the Box. Though streaked with the traces of electro-pop scenesters like 3OH!3 and Breathe Carolina, KPOP B!TCH fails to hit the same euphoric heights. “I Hate Silence” is a choose-your-own-adventure of a song that veers between the boing-splat bass of early SOPHIE, the supersaw synths of festival EDM, and a final brostep-y breakdown. Bogged down by all these possibilities, it never quite manages to commit to any. The ripping synth basses and drumroll beat drops of the title track—which features a Frost Children production credit—sound like a bastardized, deep-fried Chainsmokers song. It’s too smirky and self-aware to exist as a guilty pleasure, yet not clever enough to feel experimental. It mostly ends up being annoying.
If certain tracks fail because they feel like vacant attempts at maximalism and 2000s nostalgia, the Deep shines when she makes room for her own breezy fantasy of club music. “Birthday” is a standout: Twinkly, featherlight hyperpop production meets the racing heartbeat of garage breakbeats and the Deep’s perfectly saccharine chirp of “I love you”; the whole song feels like a delicious molly high, where everything is made of love and diamonds. The exuberant “Wrong Number” builds and builds until it explodes in a chorus of compressed, pixellated vocals—and while many songs on KPOP B!TCH could plausibly play at the club, it’s the rare track with the energy to turn wherever you are into the club. KPOP B!TCH’s best songs channel the kind of overstimulation and excess you won’t even want to remember the morning after.
