Song Review: Moonbyul (Mamamoo) – ICY BBY

It’s a day of pre-releases, as Mamamoo’s Moonbyul joins the fray with a teaser of her new album. She had a very strong slate of 2024 releases, including several standouts in a variety of genres. With this as a comparison, ICY BBY is a definite step down and feels much more indebted to current K-pop trends.

At the same time, parts of this song seem well-calibrated to Moonbyul’s strengths. She gets to fire off a rapid rap verse, the likes of which we haven’t heard from her in awhile (at least on a title track). However, the rest of the track is repetitive and boring. The hooks do nothing for me. They’re insistent in an irritating way, circling around the same simple refrains without enough breathing room to offer respite. The beat stutters in and out, causing ICY BBY‘s momentum to feel piecemeal. Just as often as it gets going, it stalls.

ICY BBY‘s hook bears the simple, stuttering structure so popular with K-pop’s girl groups at the moment, leaving little room for melodic development. Rather than surge or glide, the refrain has a stabbing rhythm. Had this been set against a contrasting instrumental, the approach might have worked better. Instead, the entire track is built upon this herky-jerky style and winds up feeling monotonous.

Grade: C-