Out of all LOONA members, Ha Sooyoung, better known by her stage name Yves, was the one who took the longest to return to the music industry. For a while after her departure from Blockberry Creative, it seemed like she was focused mostly on being an internet persona, posting pictures and blog posts chronicling her day to day life. I honestly don't blame her for this, it was probably really nice to finally be able to take a break after years and years of being overworked by BBC. When she finally did announce her solo debut, it was very exciting for me and a lot of Orbits. For one, Yves had been showcasing a new personal style with what she had been posting on the internet, very different from the style she had come to be known for during her LOONA days, and it made me think about whether or not that was gonna translate into her music. However, when LOOP finally did come out, I admittedly felt a bit underwhelmed. LOOP feels rushed... which is confusing because if you're going to put out an EP with just 4 songs, you would think you'd put more effort into making each song feel special. In reality, LOOP ends up feeling like your run of the mill, standard K-pop album with only a few features that uniquely characterize it. It's an OK EP, but it definitely leaves me wanting more out of Yves, and it makes me wonder if that was her end goal...
LOOP actually starts off fairly strong, with the R&B-tinged "DIORAMA." The song is mostly written in English but I'm gonna be very real with you: I have no clue what she's trying to say here. I'm not gonna hold that against her though, or anyone else involved in writing this song because English is clearly not her first language. After investigating (aka looking it up on Genius), apparently it's about the path Yves chooses to take after her split with BBC. But if that's the case, why is she singing about a boy here? Whatever, like I mentioned I'm not gonna hold it against her, but I will note that "DIORAMA" isn't the only song with confusing English lyrics, with the worst offender on the record not even coming from Yves herself but rather from the featured artist on the title track, Lil Cherry. Her verse is especially egregious when you realize how she literally lived and studied in the United States. Lil Cherry sounds a goddamn MESS on an otherwise really good song. From the head-scratch inducing lyrics to the accent which she puts on while rapping (which some may even find offensive, but that's a whole other can of worms that I don't feel like opening right now), Lil Cherry seems extremely out of place. It's a shame, because otherwise "LOOP" is probably one of my favorite post-LOONA outputs. It's very clearly inspired by the currently-trendy Garage genre, which was popularized in K-pop by the starlets at NewJeans, which in turn was more generally brought to the current mainstream by internet-darling-turned-pop-sensation PinkPantheress. Unfortunately, with that also comes the short run times for the songs, with all but 1 of the songs on this EP being less than 3 minutes in length. But in the case of the title track, I can forgive that. Despite the fact that I would've loved even an extra 15 to 20 seconds to this song, what it lacks in length it makes up for in how fun and catchy it is.
Once you've finished the first half of this EP, you've pretty much heard the best of what it offers, with the second half being strikingly not as good and frankly pretty uninspired. "Afterglow" would've been a perfectly fine attempt at a 2000s-esque pop-rock track, but the quality is greatly hindered by the short length and oddly poor mixing. Whereas in "LOOP" the production was great enough to essentially carry the song on its back, "Afterglow" is nowhere nearly as interesting and ends up feeling like a throwaway filler track, which is insane to me because let me reitirate the fact that this EP is only 4 tracks long. I can forgive filler tracks on longer, LP-length projects, but when you have an EP where it could've done without 50% of the songs on it? Ehhhhh... And I say 50% because "Goldfish" is just as "whatever", if not more, as "Afterglow." It's the only song with a length of over 3 minutes, clocking in at a pretty hefty (at least for modern K-pop standards) 3:42 minutes. The problem is that "Goldfish" is an acoustic ballad. Not a very interesting or captivating one at that. It's probably nice as background music when studying, but it doesn't do much for me in the context of this EP.
"LOOP" was a bit of a let-down for me. What's being marketed as Yves' first mini-album ended up feeling more like a glorified single-album, with a really good title track, a pretty decent opening track, and 2 forgettable B-sides. This is, to me, one of the biggest trade-offs of releasing an EP for your debut rather than a full-length project: sure it's quicker and cheaper to make and it's probably less of a risk, but in a shorter project the duds are more noticeable and generally bring down the overall quality of it much further. That being said, it's not all bad with LOOP. In fact, it's not bad at all. It's honestly just that I expected more from Yves based on how different she is now in terms of aesthetic compared to other idols. Although, it seems like K-pop is generally trending away from traditional idol aesthetics in favor of more relatable, nostalgic, and organic visuals and sounds. From Yves, however, it feels more genuine, which is why it surprised me with how lackluster LOOP sounds at some points, especially towards the latter half. I suspect that maybe as a musical appetizer, Yves wanted to deliver something a bit more palatable for her first musical output as a soloist as to not drive away the fans that have been with her since her integration to LOONA in 2017; but I hope that in future projects, Yves is able to find her sound a bit more and polish it, because you can hear evident signs of it in the moments where LOOP does shine.
