[Review] 4minute - Hate (Revisited)

Man, the RNG really do be blessing me with revisits while also making me nostalgic and sad as hell. 4minute's "Hate" is up for the December rerun and that title accurately describes how I'm feeling about 2020. Should we be glad it's almost over, or terrified of what is to come? Anyway let's see how wrong (or right) I was about "Hate."

• This title track was spearheaded by the news that the girls would be working with Skrillex. Considering the success of "Crazy." perhaps they wanted to keep pursuing the heavy dance rhythm. 4minute have been stuck in obscurity for a long time prior to "Crazy," so maybe "Hate" can be another good start to putting this group on the rise.

Man, Skrillex is a name I haven't heard in a long time. Granted I listen to exactly zero dubstep so that isn't surprising in any way. Regardless, collabs like this were pretty rare so it was at least some form of cool news. Now I wouldn't have called 4minute "obscure," but they definitely weren't in the highest tier of girl groups prior to the release of "Crazy," and despite some bangers in "I My Me Mine" and "Volume Up," they were never consistent enough to reach the next echelon.

• The beginning of "Hate" is absolutely beautiful. Graceful piano in the background really suits Gayoon and her powerful vocals well. Hyuna and Jihyun(!) take over from the opening sequence and both do admirably well. Hell, just the fact that Jihyun is already singing means it's 75% less likely of "Hate" has a really awkward bridge!
  

The opening and bridge of this song are truly gorgeous. All it needs is to take Jihyun out of the bridge and your song quality increases by a significant margin. It's sad how prophetic that statement turns out to be with 4minute's music.

• For the first time in a while, Hyuna's part has overshadowed / impressed more than Jiyoon's part. It's not a shame, just something that Jiyoon usually wins.

Hyuna is a naturally strong rapper in her own right, but usually when going head-to-head against Jiyoon, the latter member comes out on top. Hyuna is obviously the more prolific rapper and artist, but Jiyoon's charisma and flow tend to give her the advantage.

• Each member essentially had main parts across the entire song, with Sohyun getting the weakest part. Her prechorus does the job of building into the chorus, but admittedly that shout (scream?) at the end has to go. Gayoon's version of the prechorus is so much better since she sings the high note and there's less distortion.

Well if it's not Jihyun, then Sohyun gets the short end of the stick. Everything right up until the scream (or shout or whatever) is very good. Shame the chorus takes a nosedive from that point onward. But the line distribution aspect of "Hate" is great. Balanced distribution has always been avoided like the plague so whenever any group manages a semblance of equal distribution it's nice to see.

• The only thing to hate about "Hate" is really the chorus, and using hate there is quite strong (maybe too strong, even). The brass instruments are distracting and loud, and they easily overrun the audio. The chorus is very basic in structure and there's not a lot of singing or shouting going on. Using those trumpets makes them more noticeable. Second, while I don't listen to Skrillex, I get the feeling that deep loud trumpets aren't really his signature style. "Hate" would have benefited from something more electronic, or even just a continuation of the instrumental from the rest of the song, because that certainly wasn't disappointing.

This entire paragraph about sums up my present day feelings on the chorus, and now with four years of marination, I can safely say that I do in fact hate this chorus. Primarily due to the potential that it had which ended up going to waste. There have been a couple remixes of this song since then and I feel each one did a better job utilizing the chorus than what 4minute and Skrillex did.

You can pretend I talked about the MV again here, but I sure as hell won't.

• While "Hate" may not be the superstar that "Crazy" was, it's still an addicting song that has but a single weakness in the chorus (and even then it's not that bad). This song is still comfortably better than a plethora of other 4minute titles, and in the grand scheme of things is probably the group's #3 song since debut. Wouldn't say I'm excited, but definitely pleased with how "Hate" turned out.

Unfortunately for 2016 me, the chorus really is that bad. Enough to sour the song's reputation for me despite the stellar performances elsewhere. It is true that "Hate" still succeeds more than some of their other songs in their library (though that isn't particularly hard), but with the benefit of hindsight I'm gonna go out and say that it doesn't belong in 4minute's top three singles of all time.