EVERGLOW - Pirate

Ever since their debut in 2019, I've always been on the fence about EVERGLOW's music, which more often than not is a miss for me. The group has dabbled in various concepts over the past 2 years and never really stuck to one. Some have considered them the "killing part queens", wherein their titles focus more on delivering an addictive killing part as compared to sticking to one concept, and this is something that definitely carries over to their latest EP "Return of The Girl". Marking the return of Yuehua Entertainment's resident girl group after slightly over 5 months, let's take a look at their latest title track Pirate.

Meaning: You could be fooled by the tone and vibe of the song, but Pirate is 100% a song about self-empowerment, specifically for females. Pirate-related (obviously) imagery is abound in the song, with lines like "shiver me timbers" and the repeated use of "ahoy". It's a little strange that this is what EVERGLOW are going with to deliver a message about female empowerment but it gets the point across. The members sing about how other girls should be able to make an impact globally, evident with Sihyeon's pre-chorus, where she goes "girls all over the world... we could be anything". The chorus also mentions a "riot that [the girls] made" and how they "can't ever stay quiet", representing how women around the world have increasingly made their voices heard. Apart from the overarching female empowerment message, Pirate can also be interpreted as a way for EVERGLOW to hype themselves up as trendsetters and making waves as a girl group. 

MV: Unlike EVERGLOW's previous MV with FIRST, which was pretty much a full-blown performance MV, Pirate sees them reverting to the usual style of having visual shots as well as group dance sequences. To me, what stands out the most is how dynamic the dance shots are. There are very few long takes and the camera is never static, making use of frequent jump cuts to emphasise the energetic nature of the song. Something else I appreciate is how grand the set pieces are. from a rocky moon to a futuristic spaceship, complete with a glorious purple galaxy in the background, Pirate's MV is shot beautifully. Throughout the MV, we also get a lot of special effects that come in the form of delayed slow motion sequences. I find that this adds a lot to the MV's etherealness and works especially well when it comes to individual shots. Finally, the visual shots are super eye-catching and really give off a badass vibe, perfectly in line with the song's meaning.

While not necessarily part of the MV per se, I do have some gripes with the choreography. While I'll elaborate on this in a later segment (see Song), I dislike the main point of the dance, which happens during the repeated "pirate" lines in the post-chorus. It looks so unbelievably silly and completely takes me out of the song. For something that should be totally badass and empowering, it instead becomes something akin to PSY's Gentleman, definitely not something you want to associate your song about female empowerment with. Overall, while Pirate's MV does invoke a dynamic vibe, the main point of the dance detracts from the overall tone, preventing it from being perfectly badass. 

Styling: EVERGLOW are girl crush queens and this is matched by their styling. As always, we get dance outfits and visual outfits, all of which look excellent in my opinion. We get 3 dance outfits in the song, 2 of which are very similar to each other in that they're primarily darker colours with some shiny accents. This perfectly encapsulates Pirate's badass element and accentuates the girls' visuals. The 3rd dance outfit is a lot more colourful and not as coordinated across the group, with each member wearing something different. I consider this a "club" outfit, which is interesting because Pirate invokes a very similar mood (see Song). 

As you would expect from a song called "Pirate", there's bound to be some related imagery in the MV and that comes in the form of individual outfits worn by the girls. While not necessarily something that would be worn by a pirate, the girls are given gorgeous outfits that look both elegant and dangerous. My personal favourite will always be Sihyeon, who we see in an amazing black dress and gem-studded crown, planting an EVERGLOW flag on a spaceship. Classic pirate things but I have to give huge props to the styling team for what they did with Onda. She's a total badass drawing and posing with a cutlass, and she looks a-freaking-mazing. Whoever thought of that look for her deserves a raise. 

Song: The funniest thing about this song is that despite literally being called "Pirate", it sounds less like a swashbuckling high seas jig than previous title track Adios. Instead, Pirate is more similar to a song that you'll hear in the club and this is clearly evident from the silly post-chorus. Unfortunately, I massively dislike it because it just detracts from the badass vibe I wanted from this comeback. The saddest part is, I really liked the pre-chorus and chorus because it was very upbeat and fun, while also benefitting from the girls' stellar vocals. It all then descends into madness with the droning, boring post-chorus (which is undoubtedly the song's killing part), complete with ridiculous dance moves. Seriously, listen to that song and watch that part of the MV, and then go and watch PSY's Gentleman. It's practically the same thing, although I guess that could be put down to how Pirate is very reminiscent of club music from the 2010s. Either way, it's not my cup of tea. 

Line distribution: If there's one thing that can be said about EVERGLOW, it would be that they're queens of consistency because their line distributions are consistently disastrous. For a 6-member group, we're reaching unfairness levels that make larger groups seem like generous gods. As expected, main vocal Mia gets top honours with a whopping 33.6%, more than a third of the entire song to herself. This is the least surprising yet most annoying thing because it seems like the producers never seem to learn when assigning lines. I'm not trying to sell Mia short, she's main vocal for a reason but it's really not fair to both her and the rest of the group when she gets this many lines. As mentioned before, having too many lines will place a lot of stress on her vocal cords and coupled with the fact that she's main dancer (which also means a ton of focus on her), she really has a lot on her plate. 

Coming in runners-up is leader Sihyeon at 29.4%, which is nothing new since she's usually in the top 2 when it comes to number of lines. As lead vocal, this is even more expected and personally, I like her voice the most in EVERGLOW so I'm glad she gets so many lines. What I'm not glad about is the immense drop to third place as main rapper E:U comes in at 11.1%, less than half of what Sihyeon had. Like I said in my review of previous title track FIRST, I'm happy that E:U is in the top half of the line distribution but the amount of lines is simply pathetic. All she does is get a couple of repeated lines and half of a rap, she totally deserves more. The bottom half of the line distribution is where things really get depressing. 

Lead rapper Aisha has 9.8% of the song and just like E:U before her, she only gets some repeated lines and half of the rap. This is about the same as what she had in FIRST and is also something I expected. However, her stage presence and charisma is off the charts as usual so I think she performs her lines very well. In 5th place we have maknae Yiren at 8.5%, which surprises me quite a bit considering how she's almost certainly the most popular member of the group. That said she's only a sub-vocal and also the only foreigner so I guess having fewer lines makes sense. At any rate, she gets a good amount of center time and MV screen time, owing to her popularity so that balances out her lack of lines. 

Rounding up the list is lead dancer Onda at 7.5%. I don't know why I thought things would be any different for her because Onda has been getting squat for lines since forever. Things were looking better in FIRST but we've just reverted back to the status quo. The whole time I was listening to Pirate, I kept asking myself when Onda would get to sing and thankfully she gets half of a chorus and post-chorus. It's still disappointing though that first place Mia has almost 5 times the amount of lines that Onda got. At this point, I'm done hoping for better line distributions for EVERGLOW because I'm fairly certain this is how it's going to be from now on. 

Final thoughts: I really like how the EP's name of "Return of The Girl" has very strong connotations. It's not just "a" girl but "The" girl, referencing the power that EVERGLOW has as a 4th generation K-Pop girl group. This return marks yet another concept change for them as they try something new once again and based off fan reception, Pirate seems to be a hit, with many people appreciating the song's nostalgic vibes. I theorised in my review of FIRST that ex-IZ*ONE member Yena might join the group for this comeback, a theory that has since been proven wrong, but regardless this comeback definitely marks a change in EVERGLOW's style. 

I haven't been a huge fan of EVERGLOW's music since LA DI DA and Pirate has done nothing to change that for me. Moving forward, I hope that the group will continue to grow and improve, especially when it comes to their line distributions. Until then, I think it's safe to say that the girls have definitely cemented themselves as K-Pop's new "killing part queens". Thanks for reading.