[Review] GD&TOP - Zutter

Now with "Let's Not Fall In Love" out of the way, we have another tacky song and just from the Youtube thumbnail alone, you knew we were in for some weird stuff. GD&TOP as the subunit ha been inactive for a good while. The last time we saw this duo was in 2011 with songs like "High High" and "Baby Good Night." It'll be nice to see them return with some refreshing raps and interesting videos. How...unlucky? Inconvenient? Awkward? Not sure what the word is, but it's a shame this shares the same Korean title with BTS' "Dope." Obviously they're entirely different songs, and you're bound to eventually have the same title as someone (and this has happened many many times already), but for both groups to have a title track with the same name is unfortunate.

I don't know how to talk about this video. I really don't think I can. I couldn't keep up with all the bizarre shenanigans going on. From the bathroom, to the freezer, to cameos, to...whatever the hell T.O.P is doing at 2:14. There's just so much arbitrarily random stuff happening I don't know what to say. G-Dragon's section makes a little more sense with the gambling and that's when a majority of the "cameos" show up. T.O.P is killing pigs and cooking and drinking or something. They're pissing together and dying together, getting high as balls and drinking happily, dancing like idiots and driving away without a care in the world. This is one hell of a video, and I can only nod my head in some sort of approval.

The rapping is charismatic yet powerful. It's very reminiscent of the original songs from GD&TOP where all they did was rap aggressively in songs like "High High" and "Oh Yeah" and their ability to replicate that is good. Given that this subunit straight focuses on the rapping of the pair, "Zutter" probably has the best rapping out of any Big Bang song so far, if nothing else than for how well the style compliments the goofy instrumental. While in the last review of "Let's Not Fall In Love" I mentioned that the rapping out of GD&TOP sort of mesh together in my memory, it's obvious that the only exception is from "Zutter." And thankfully so. It'd be a problem if the rapping in the rap-based subunit wasn't memorable.

"Zutter" is a revival of GD&TOP after 4 years and an exercise in how combining smooth rapping with a silly instrumental is sometimes all you need. The MV where nobody knows what the hell is going on is just an added bonus. It's a confusing bonus, but a bonus nonetheless. The final verdict of this Big Bang comeback is that there were certainly some losers (heh), but the average song is quite good and makes for perhaps the most influential comeback of 2015.

[ Overall: 85 / 100 ]