For starters, "Hot Pink" has deviated itself far from the "Up & Down" formula that gave EXID their chance at glory. The only instance of similarity was at 1:12 right before Solji's part. You could probably insert the latter half of the "Up & Down" chorus from there and that'd be a seamless transition but outside of that the comparisons are lacking. This is good, since we want EXID to find success on their own without the need to piggyback of their "ultimate" song. Overall "Hot Pink" sounds like a much shorter song, due to having around 30 seconds of filler at the beginning and end of the song. I'm assuming this is allocated dance time to show off more choreography during lives, as we don't get to see too much of the dance (outside of the hilariously jittery bit at 1:20 right before the chorus) in this video. The standard EXID formula is still there: Hyerin and Solji teaming up for a strong singing performance, LE delivers a series of raps, and Junghwa gets the awkwardest of all awkward parts (more on that later).
Hani takes care of business leading the song like she did in "Ah Yeah," Her sweet yet sultry gaze carries over to her vocals and she's rocking green hair like Jiyoon did in "Crazy." Sadly the opening is pretty much all we see from her, with the prechorus and chorus taking up much of the song along with the aforementioned filler wrapping both ends. Hyerin still needs some more work on her acting and general presence, her boring demeanor doesn't compliment her emphatic voice. Solji, meanwhile, is stunning in both aspects, and she definitely needed to belt "everybody dance now" right before the chorus. That would have been perfect in every way.
Just recently, LE was crowned as the #1 girl group rapper but the rapping in "Hot Pink" wasn't very exciting. Part of the reason is because of the background male "vocals" literally eating up half of each rap segment. I know the chorus is also just chanting like the male voices but c'mon LE could've done so much better. The rapping here is just too brief and cluttered to be any good. Moving on, Junghwa still is relegated to the most awkward parts of all the main EXID titles. Granted this is much better than her previous endeavours in "Up & Down" and "Ah Yeah," but her section is still very much out of place compared to the rest of the song. At least looks amazing in that pink hair, my gosh.
I don't even wanna talk about this music video haha. It's so bizarre, I'm not ready to try and theorycraft anything. EXID runs a gas station out in the middle of nowhere (literally) and only men (hmm) show up to get...pink gas? We even see Junghwa literally locked in a room of the stuff. You'd think she is being slaved away by the other members or something, but when the police show up (how come we're seeing more cops in Kpop videos lately?) she's with the rest of the girls ready to surrender. Except they're all holding wrenches behind their backs. Uh oh, the last thing EXID wants is any legal troubles. At the end of the day, all I know is that 9MUSES also had a gas station theme for a song once and they did much better with the execution. 90% fanservice and 10% plot works better than a split with a questionable storyline.
It's difficult to determine whether or not "Hot Pink" has provided us with another signature EXID track. The song structure is quite jumbled and less catchy, with stereotypical clutter starting and ending the song plus Junghwa's awkward bridge in the middle. LE has some punctual moments but are overshadowed by the unnecessary chanting, and while Hyerin and Solji remain spectacular, their parts are (as usual) too short to really be something special. It's still a good song, no doubt, but unfortunately at time of writing "Hot Pink" fails to live up to the expectations set by "Ah Yeah."
[ Overall: 77 / 100 ]
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